When I first found out I was pregnant, one of the more exciting things was realizing I was finally going to put to use all those names I’d been collecting over the years.
Me at age 17: Oh, Jeremy…I like that one…Jacob, too! Adeline is pretty for a girl, right?
Oh shut it. Like you DIDN’T do that in between all those games of MASH. Besides, it was less “I-want-to-have-a-kid” and more “naming-things-is-fun.”
Heh.
Anyway, when it was actually go-time, I started to feel the pressure. My husband didn’t like some of them, and the rest no longer seemed PERFECT. [Read: DON'T NAME BABY AFTER EX-BOYFRIENDS] So I searched online. I bought books. I made lists. And, people, the names I was coming up with…?
I had somehow gotten it into my head that my son/daughter’s name would have to be UNIQUE and ORIGINAL and if I heard any prospective name in casual conversation, it’d be dramatically struken of my list:
Friend: Yeah, so then Sam–my brother–told me about this girl he met at the ba–…
Me: HOLD THE PHONE, sister. Your slutty brother is named Samuel?! GODDAMMIT.
(I’m not really such a great friend, it turns out.)
This? This ridiculous behavior? That’s why we end up with children named:
Shithead (Prononuced Sha-teed)
Orangejello (Pronounced Ohrannj-alloh)
and, of course, Apple.
Really.*
But I still couldn’t quite shake the PRESSURE of name-finding. And it only seemed to increase toward the end of my pregnancy. My husband and I still hadn’t decided on a name, but the rest of the world was apparently tired of waiting. WHO KNEW. At work, I was getting inquiries constantly. One conversation is a story I still tell today:
Her: SOOOOO?! What are you going to NAME him?!
Me: Oh…yeah. [Smiling awkwardly.] Well, actually we’re not sure yet! I think we’re going to wait to meet him and then decide between a few.
Her: Oh. Well I guess you can do that.
She guesses?
Her: Well, what are the options?
Me: [Dodging.] Uhmm, to be honest, they kind of change every day.
Her: [Annoyed.] Well, let me tell you. My niece just named her son Tyler. And I really like that name SO much. You can use that one. Make sure you add it to your list.
I CAN USE IT?!
People, it was all I could do to lob my puffy, pregnant hand across her pompous, chubby cheek.
In the end, we selected a name after I gave birth. And it all seemed perfect. I almost didn’t even mind that my husband had more or less decided on this name months prior.
Almost.
__________
*Consult Malcom Gladwell for more on peculiar baby names. He’s got some interesting stuff to say on the matter.
Tags: books & resources, choosing a name, The Hub, unsolicited advice
Best advice I was ever given for picking a name: If you can imagine yourself yelling it across a crowded playground without feeling like a git, it’s a winner.
I also heard it said that you shouldn’t tell people what the baby’s name should be beforehand anyway. Because you’ll love it and invariably, someone’ll say that they know a dog by that name.
…
I used the “yell across the playground” test too!! My first husband wanted to name our son Wyatt, but I was able to refuse him based on “Quiet Wyatt!”. Oh that was NOT going to happen…
Favorite names from the baby name books when I was pregnant w/daughter – Illdegunda (yes she would be a strong warrior princess!) and Aburfa (I might have been nauseous at the time).
-Laura Wattenberg has written extensively on urban legends and baby names, most recently at http://www.babynamewizard.com/archives/2009/10/ledasha-legends-and-race-part-one (there are three parts — that is part one)
- In terms of naming dilemmas, The Name Lady has answered several questions on what to do when your favorite name is “taken”
http://www.namecandy.com/name-lady/2009/06/08/we-all-want-the-same-baby-name
JC: Both of those are gems of advice, I say. Dogs are just as problematic as exes. With striking similarity, not surprisingly, eh?
Dawn: Aburfa…good god. Those baby books are something else. I became obsessed, myself.
Jennie: Thanks for the links…though, just to be clear, the “Shithead” phenomenon is not an urban legend, according to my sources.