I am uninspired today. I feel like I say the same things over and over: “Two names with something in common doesn’t mean you’ve established an unbreakable theme.” “No, I don’t think that’s too much of a mouthful.” “I know you don’t want five in every class, but that won’t happen even if you choose the number-one most popular name.” “The goal is not to find a name you like better than the one you can’t use; the goal is to choose your favorite from all the remaining options.” “No one has dibs on a name.” “These little things are the things that feel super important right now but you’ll barely remember them later.” “There are no naming rules.” “That doesn’t need to be decided ahead of time.” “Consider the future sibling names.” “People may give opinions but hardly anyone deep-down cares what name you choose.” “It is not the parents’ responsibility to find The Perfect Name Preordained by The Universe as The Only Right Name for This Baby.” “Unhelpful Vetoing Husband Who Only Likes One Name needs to KNOCK THAT RIGHT OFF.”
Let’s talk about what advice you would give to people naming a baby. You can say one single thing or ten—whatever comes to your mind. It doesn’t have to be The Most Important Thing, or something that would apply in all situations: just pick anything. And don’t worry about repeating something someone else has said: I think it’s very helpful to see if many people would say the same thing.
My sister is pregnant and weary of naming conversations. I just tell her that she’s doing a great job and that because she has great taste and cares about it, the right thing will be obvious at some point – even if point is after they’ve named the baby that their nervous choice seems like a perfect fit.
Don’t worry about finding the perfect name, you will make yourself crazy. Your goal should be a serviceable name, one that doesn’t humiliate your kid or start WWIII with your parents or divorce proceedings with your spouse. Your beautiful is someone else’s weird. Honoring people, having special meaning, matching siblings are completely subjective, totally optional, and no one will say anything once the kid is born. If you like or even love the name consider that a bonus.
You will love the kid (most of the time) and loving their name will happen as a part of your love for the kid. You will probably have to pay for therapy for your kid regardless of what name you pick.
So enjoy the process because it’s pretty hard to screw up.
We hope that the kid will spend most of their life as an adult, which means cuteness is overrated, sibling names matter less than we tell ourselves, and they’ll spend most of their life interacting with people less openminded and accepting than their parents. Judge Sweetpea is going to have to work very hard to be taken in his career. Elanor-because-her-dad-loves-Tolkien is going to have to introduce herself that way every time. Ian pronounced eye-awn is going to sheepishly tell everyone you read it in a book and didn’t know how it was pronounced.
But other than a reasonably wearable name for an adult, have fun. Names are beautiful.
Once you’ve decided, keep it to yourself until your sweet babe arrives! People will consistently inquire. Stay strong. It’s not so that it’s a surprise, but so that no one gets to have the power to make you second guess The Name.
Molly is a perfectly fine name for an adult! Every time I see it mentioned, people always say how cute it is for a little girl or even an old lady, but they can’t picture it on a professional woman in her 20s or 30s. Spoiler alert: I am a professional woman in my 30s and it has consistently been completely fine and normal and no one has ever said to me “Oh, I assumed you were a 5 year old” or not taken me seriously because of my name.
“Oh, I assumed you were a 5 year old” Haha! I love that!
I totally agree. Plus, most names grow up not only with the kid, but also with the naming culture. Cindy used to read as cute 5 year old too but now it has dated to woman in her 50s or 60s. The same will happen with most names, even nicknames that come across as “cute” or “young” now.
I agree to all of the above! Names grow with the person!
Don’t worry too much about popularity.
Anecdotal information: My kids go to a daycare with approximately 50 kids. Of the top 20 names in our state for boys and girls, 3 girls names are represented and 6 boys names, no kids with duplicates. Last year, however, there were 3 girls with the same name, which had a ranking in the 40s.
Choose a name that’ll wear reasonably well. My brother actually has a 2nd middle name, but he’s hidden it since he was 5 or 6. Mom nicknamed him Elf prenatally and his father put it on the birth certificate without consulting anyone. Mom was livid. Think Michael Joseph Elf Schmidt. Naturally, he’s about as elfin as a professional wrestler.
Popularity is over rated, in both directions. It doesn’t matter if you want to name your son Alexander or Bruce if it’s a name you love.
Cultural appropriation is a thing and we should avoid doing it especially if you’re in the dominant culture. My husband and I are of Northern and North-Western European extraction. We could make an argument for Viktor or Ciaran, but Carlos, Kofi, or Hiro would be weird. Those are fine names I’d have considered them if I had married a man from those cultures, though.
A kid’s initials is a much bigger concern to me than her siblings’ names. Bruce Uriah McDonald is going to be much more upset over the initials BUM than he will over not matching his siblings Celeste and Cameron.
My biggest things are that:
1) Your baby’s name is THEIR name. Not a name you wish you’d had, not your chance to be different. THEIR name. So please, name responsibly.
2) Going off of that: my dad (as I’ve said before on here) was given a very feminine name (which in the year of his birth WAS a popular male name, but only that year and it is now not even in the top 1000 for men). Therefore I grew up with him being annoyed at all of the people who mistook his name for a woman’s. So I always thought, while my grandmother certainly meant well, and the name WAS popular then, you’re really adding extra baggage to kids if they have a name that is typically for the opposite gender or one with a crazy spelling.
3) Going off of THAT: my mom had a similar problem, in that her name was somewhat common her birth year but is in general not a used name at all. And her middle name was much worse! And she HATES her nicknames. So if you ARE going to give your kid a name that you feel works/is important for whatever reason, give them a long name/nick name/middle name to fall back on.
4) Consider the potential insults. My new last name sounds like Heinz but is spelled like a person’s backside. I therefore will not be naming my kid anything that starts with B, because I am not cruel. No matter how much I love Bianca and Beatrice and Bennett. Yes, some kids will always think of a bad nickname for kids…but why make it easy on them?
5) I think it’s fairly obvious at this point that I am NOT a fan of ‘boy names’ for girls or vice versa. But I do think that when you go down that route and have more than one kid, you have to stick with said theme. Don’t have one kid named Clara and one named Brennan, both girls. I know Swistle you’ve given a ton of great advice about this before, but it rings very true to me. When you like a name of a girl that is not common (I’m not talking Sophia and Scarlet or even super popular boyish girl names now like Avery and June), look at what other, comparable names exist in that genre. If you like Sloane for a girl, well how common is that right now for girls? Are there other more gender neutral names in that category you can go with for a second child? Again, YOU may not care, but will your kids down the road? Unless you have a specific, family-centric story as to why you gave your kid one gendered name and not the other, try to keep them in the same level of popularity at least.
6) Kid’s initials should not spell anything horrible.
7) All of my suggestions to me go specifically for the kid in the future. Again, it may not matter to YOU how your kid’s name differs from their friends, or their siblings, or even others with that name. But it likely will to THEM. And more often than not, they WILL care. So think before you name!
and I meant in #5 when you have two girls names that you like that aren’t necessarily the same level of popularity or same style of name.
First: Swistle, I think you should make a post that is a list of all those things you just said and call it Swistle’s Baby Naming Principles (or something snappier than that; I’m terrible at titles) and make it a permanent link in the sidebar. Because all of those things are GOOD ADVICE and for people who come here to read along but might not write in or whatever, it would be a very handy, printable list when they need it.
On to my advice: Well, I don’t know. I think the main thing I would say is to try to have fun with it. It feels in the moment like a HUGE DEAL, and in a sense it is a huge deal to choose the name by which a whole new human will be called their whole life. But dwelling on that can be paralyzing for many people, so to the extent you can make it fun (in whatever way is fun for you, whether it’s making exhaustive lists or drawing out of a hat or researching like crazy, etc), do that.
Also, I would try to put out of your mind as much, as much as you can, whether someone will get their nose out of joint for whatever reason based upon your name choice (they aren’t being honored; they are being honored; someone else is being honored; they had “dibs” on the name; some other dumb reason that they are too invested in YOUR baby’s name). You can’t control other people’s reactions to things, and this is sort of your very own thing that you get to do your own way.
Ultimately, your baby is going to be their own person, out in the world, living a full life, and what other people’s opinions are about their name when they are still in utero or newly born will fade away over time, because their name will become associated with THEM for the people who love them. So all the million considerations you feel like you have to weigh will fade over time as the backstory of the name becomes less important and the association of the name with this whole, real person solidifies.
So pick a name that makes you smile. I still get smiley to the point of being teary-eyed when I think about my daughter’s name and how it turned out to suit her so perfectly and how the name itself is part of my delight in her, but I also equally know that even if I’d named her something else, whatever name we chose would give me butterflies and teary eyes because it’s HERS and I can’t imagine loving anyone or anything more than I love her.
I totally agree. Swistle – I think you could write up a summary of all your advice and it would be hugely helpful as a resource! Not everyone wants to read 60 pages back into the archive to get all your great advice (but I did!!).
There used to be a sidebar with links to some of the best post…I miss it!
This is basically the advice I would have given myself 7 years ago:
1. If you are at all concerned about the popularity of a name, make sure to consider alternate spellings and similar names. Example: the name Adeline will get lumped in with many other names, some of which you may really dislike. And it will make your chosen name feel more popular than it is. I don’t think this has to be a deal breaker, but something that should be considered.
2. Just because your spouse vetoes one of your favorite names, don’t take it off your list. He will probably forget he even vetoed it 6 months (or a kid or two) later.
3. Try not to worry about popularity when you have an absolute favorite name. Things are almost guaranteed to not go according to plan (ex: you don’t pick #10 because you think it’s too popular, so you pick #328 and somehow that name is more popular at your kid’s school than #10). So just pick the name you love the most.
4. Don’t give into pressure. Unless you really love your mother in law (I am so jealous if that actually applies to ANYONE), don’t give your kid her name (even as a middle) just because she is using every manipulation possible. It’s your kid and your choice.
5. Don’t get bogged down by possible nicknames for your kid. The default nowadays appears to be either no nicknames, or going by a nickname specifically chosen by the parents. I don’t know anyone who meets a 1 year old William and tries to call him, Will, Bill, Willy, Liam, etc. unless his parents introduce him as it.
Oh, and one more!
6. Google your kid’s future name in different combinations (first and last, first and middle, last then first, etc.) to make sure you aren’t missing a historical or current namesake that you don’t want associated with your child.
I would definitely recommend #6. I am obsessed with a particular name, but paired with my husband’s last name, it turns out there’s a fairly popular porn star with that first and last name. Can you imagine her future dates or teachers googling her?
Haha #4 kills me!!!!
I haven’t named a baby yet, but whenever I get too worked up about the popularity of a name (specifically the rising popularity of my grandmother’s name, current front runner for a future baby girl), and the “popularity isn’t what it used to be” argument isn’t helping me chill out, I remind myself that a popular name with one dominant spelling and a distinct sound may still feel less popular/trendy/dated than a statistically less popular name with a lot of spelling variations or rhyming/sound-a-like names.
My #1 piece of advice is to pick a name with meaning. I’ve asked many people how they got their name and if they like it. In general when people say “my parents thought it was pretty” and shrug they also say “I hate it. It’s too popular/ everyone says it wrong/ it’s ugly.” And really that makes a lot of sense, because our kids are in a different generation from us and so what sounds beautiful to our ear is going to sound different to theirs.
When people say “it was my grandmother’s name.” Or it’s Hawaiian and I was born in Hawaii, it’s the month my parents met, it’s the name my mom named every doll she’d had since she was 7, etc. They’re more likely to tell me they love their name. Because they feel special to have something special and meaningful passed down to them. It seems to override a names popularity, lack of popularity, how it matches their sibling’s name, etc.
It makes me sad when people give up their grandma’s name, whether it’s Abigail or Maude, even though they always loved it, because too many other people used it or because nobody else is using it and they are afraid it’s too out of fashion.
Yes!
Make sure initials don’t spell anything embarrassing.
For the rest, have fun but be serious (they child has to live with your choice, and people DO judge based upon a name – may not be fair, but it’s reality).
Beware the temptation to choose a name that would make an excellent Marvel character but a miserable real-life teenager.
It is generally best NOT to share your name ideas with family and friends. Once the baby is here, almost everyone will react positively (at worst, neutrally). Then they will all get used to it and like the name or even love it. And so what if they don’t? It is not their baby. If you share the name while you are pregnant, people weigh in with their poorly thought out opinions and may spoil the name for you and cause you to have second thoughts.
This advice is probably truest if you have a name or two you are pretty much set on. I suppose if you have 15 names that you are considering and you can’t decide at all, you could start polling family and friends.
OTOH, you might want to run it by at least one trusted family member. My top name for my second met *all* of my husband and my checklist, and seemed perfect. I had forgotten it was the name of my step grandmother, a woman who was so horrid to my mother and and brother me that my stepfather stopped talking to her for the rest of his life. To be fair, I never called by her first name, but it would’ve been horrible for my mother…
And also: The vast majority of the time, when you end up choosing a serviceable name that is a bit ‘meh’ at first and doesn’t make you sigh with joy….you end up being happy with it after a few weeks or months and you can’t imagine your baby with anything else.
Also: There are lots of names out there that you might LOVE on other people but it doesn’t mean that they are YOUR babies’ names – and that’s okay.
Use the name you love! Don’t worry too much what other people think. The name you choose will somehow fitting your baby perfectly and no one will care anymore.
Your baby’s name is a gift to them. Once you have given it to them, it is their’s and they are allowed to do with it as they wish. (So, if there is a name you love but hate the nickname, pick a different name! Your child themselves might want to go by that nn.)
Don’t assume your child will feel the same about their name that you did. Whether it was that you had a common name and wished you had a unique one, or that you hated your unique name and wanted a common one. Your child is an individual and it is impossible to predict their temperament (outgoing, loud, shy, quiet, etc.)
But my number 1 is this: unless you specifically asked for that person’s opinion or are planning on naming your baby Lucifer, do NOT listen to anyone who poo-poos on your baby name. I don’t care what they say, all they are being is rude. Name your baby what you want.
1) A baby’s name is not the place to create a joke. It will be this child’s name the rest of their life. Banda Rector might seem fun in the moment but I bet by PK little Banda will be way over that joke.
2) Creative spellings just mean that your child will have to spell their name for everyone the rest of their life. If you are going to name your child Michael do that not Mykale.
3) Use the name you love and honor the people you want to honor but understand that just because you love the name or the person does not mean your child will love their name.
4) look up the name meaning at least once. Yes there are people named Chlamydia. No, I don’t think their parents understood what the word means when they used it. An African American man named Aryan is going to have a hard time.
Don’t worry so much about the rhythm of the full name. Most middle names are rarely used, they don’t need to sound perfect. Go ahead and give your baby your grandmother’s name even if it doesn’t match her siblings or whatever.
Don’t worry so much about other external factors like the names of the kids next door or the arbitrary meanings in the baby name books or whatever. Most people who will interact with your child during their lifetime haven’t memorized the SSA name popularity charts, don’t have a baby name dictionary handy, and will never meet your cousin’s spaniel. If there’s a name you would love to use, don’t let small drawbacks seem like huge obstacles.
1. I second all of the suggestions about being careful to avoid having the child’s initials spell a bad word.
2. Work with the child’s other parent to decide on names together. If your naming styles differ greatly, BOTH sides need to be able to compromise to find a name that BOTH can agree on.
3. I would like to say that in most situations, you should go with the name you love. There may be circumstances in which your favorite name is not the ideal or you may decide to go with your second (or third) choice instead. It is ok.
4. Do not stress about finding the “perfect” name. After they are born, the more you associate a name with your child, the more your child will grow into his or her name and that name will come to be “their” name.
5. Also, while going through the naming process can be fun, your child’s name is something they will most likely carry with them their entire lives. The birth certificate is not the place to write a joke or “be funny” or “be witty” or anything of that nature. Therefore, have fun with the process but be sure to take your child’s name seriously.
6. If a significant number of individuals you have shared a favorite name with do raise concerns, at least take the time to consider their concerns and determine if they are legitimate before dismissing them. While, yes, you are the parent and ultimately the one or half of the pair who decides what to name your child, if enough people show concern with a name there may be a good reason.
7. Family naming traditions or honor names are wonderful when they work but do not feel like you MUST continue a naming tradition if it does not work for you and your family. Also, honor names are intended to “honor” someone of the parents’ choosing… No one, no matter how much you love them, has the right to demand to be named after nor be offended if you choose not to honor them.
8. In this day and age, it is quite possible that someone somewhere will have strong opinions on names for your child OR be offended/disgruntle with your naming choice. Before you feel attacked or hurt or confused by that, seriously think about whether that person’s opinions even matter to you or should matter. You are the parent(s) and not them and naming this child is your privilege, not theirs.
It’s better to have a name they need to grow into, than one they’re going to grow out of.
When in doubt, look at your family ancestry charts. There are usually some gems and it helps to find something that means something–especially if you don’t have really strong feelings about any particular name.
Accept that at some point, someone else will use your name for their child because you don’t own the name. Choose a name you would still love even if a later cousin was named the same name. Conversely, if you are naming a child think hard before you give them the same name as one of their cousins or close family friends. Of course you CAN name your child what you want, just consider how the other parent will receive it. We have a short list of names (3 cousins and 3 close friends) whose children’s names we have taken completely out of our name discussions.
Imagine you are five years old, and the school principal greets you as you walk to class on the first day. When the principal asks your name, leans forward, and holds out his hand, will he understand your name over your nerves and mumbling? Adalyn or Madalyn? Jessa or Tessa? Mike or Ike? Roy or Rory?
If you say, “Rapper” or “Felony”, will the principal look confused? Will you realize that you look ridiculous?
Be considerate of your child.
Just as importantly, if you are DETERMINED not to name your child something popular, you need to actually LOOK at the social security index to see how popular a name is BEFORE naming your child. Do not blindly choose a Top 10 name and complain for the rest of their life how appalled you are that so many other parents used that name, too. It’s rude to your child and the rest of society.
Just because you have had a name list prepared since the second grade… does not mean you are the only parent who gets to name your child. Leave room for your spouse to have an opinion. It makes for a more amicable naming experience for both of you.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help! The interwebs provide plenty of anonymous assistance. Just follow the above suggestions before settling on the perfect title for your perfect little one. :)
I hate when I see someone write in feeling so pressured to give their child an honor name. Picking apart family trees looking for something remotely usable and feeling guilt because someone may feel jilted (existing relative or even future sibling) for not being properly honored.
Relax! Unless you have a clear winner because it makes your heart super happy, then find a swim lane that does make your heart super happy.
I once had a mother in law that declared at the beginning of my marriage that per their family tradition the grandmother gets to name the baby. I shut that down fast.
Yes! There are so many other ways to honor a relative or loved one – actually could be an interesting post! Readers could identify alternative honor strategies!
Pick a name you love, but if you can’t find a name you love, that’s okay too. In that case, find some names you like that you think are all wearable and pick one of those knowing that they are all good, valid options and that you will grow to love the name as the name merges with the identity of the child that you love. That’s my naming story anyway. Oh, and if Indecisive Husband is being unhelpful, keep throwing your favorites at him over time and then when you get close to show time, insist on some sort of opinion. Take that opinion into account to choose finalist(s).
My first advice is always to consider the first name in combination with the surname. Most people do this, but a sizable number don’t seem to really take flow into consideration and it has lifelong implications. I think first name/surname coordination is more important than sibling coordination; after all, you’re only really considered in relation to your siblings as a group by the outside world as a child, but your first name and last name stay with you (often) forever. Things to watch out for: first name/last name combo that makes a sentence (Gray Bacon); repeating endings (sort of like Addison Lawson—this one is ok sometimes but often sounds super repetitive); running together (Iris Shaw).
I also advise—gingerly, and only if given hints it’s a concern, because I have no wish to impugn anyone’s style—to think about trendiness and perhaps look at the SSA listing for a name over a couple of years to see how it factors. Names like Riley or Madison or Jackson may seem very generation-dated in a few decades; if that bothers you, or you don’t like how your own name dates you to the 70s or 80s, it’s worth casting further afield for something either more unusual or more stable.
People are going to voice their opinions. It’s what they do. Unfortunately it always seems like relatives are the ones with the strongest opinions and they stick to them! We didn’t share our names or even name ideas with friends and family to avoid negativity. Whenever someone (again always a relative) starting making suggestions, or saying things like “you better not do x,y, or z,” we’d always respond “thank you for wanting to be a part of baby’s life. We are so excited that so many people already love him /her. But you’ve already named your own children, now it’s our turn.” Nine times outta ten that ended the conversation, and it didn’t come up again.
Yep. I dissent from the “don’t tell people the name you’ve picked” argument, because we got crap about their names even after they were attached to actual born babies (and they are perfectly normal names — I feel as though there’s someone here who could vouch for me — Swistle, maybe? — but for now, just trust me: normal names).
So by the third kid, I just told people, and if I got backlash, I would just say, “Well, you have X months to learn to like it, so work on that.”
“Well, you have X months to learn to like it, so work on that.”
Haha! That is actually a great response to those with over-zealous opinions on your child’s name.
We, too, decided to tell everyone our son’s name about 4-5 months before he was born. Part of it was for me: I like thinking of and referring to the unborn baby by a real, permanent name. And part of it was for family and friends to get used to hearing the name and our preferred nickname ahead of time so they could “learn to like it”. We are doing the same with Baby #2. :)
I also recommend that if your chosen name originates from a country different from where you live or plan to live, you try out your proposed spelling with multiple native speakers of the language spoken in your current or future home. My well-meaning immigrant parents chose a spelling of my not-English name (we live in the U.S.), that led to it being categorically mispronounced until I informally and then legally changed it as an adult. Try to find a reasonably phonetic spelling so that your child doesn’t have the constant task of correcting people.