Hi Swistle,
I wonder if we could have a discussion on how parents go about the process of choosing a name.
Do you schedule a day to sit down and talk through it? Have random discussions throughout the pregnancy? Weekly chats? How early/late do you start talking/deciding?
Thanks!
Emma
Fun question! Paul and I are opposites with baby names: I get out the name books and a notebook the VERY DAY I find out I’m pregnant, and I would like to have a running conversation that lasts the entire pregnancy; he would prefer to talk about names perhaps once or twice, and not until the third trimester. We have to compromise. Our process varied from pregnancy to pregnancy, but if I were to SUMMARIZE it, I’d say it generally went like this:
I would spend a LOT of time going through books, making lists, thinking about combinations, etc. Periodically I might say to Paul, “Can we talk a little bit about baby names?” and he would say yes, and then we would talk until he started getting restless. Or I would give him my working lists and ask him to put marks next to any names he particularly liked or particularly objected to; sometimes I would then want a chance to talk him around to one he’d ruled out. (In one memorable case, he absolutely vetoed a name with the first pregnancy, then chose it from my list as his top favorite the next pregnancy. I made no remark on that and just took the win.)
Paul almost never came up with names. If pressed to do so, he would come up with names from our own generation: I’d have to look it up to be sure, but what I’m remembering is that his girl-name suggestions were Tamara and Wendy. Those are great names! For people he went to high school with!
He fit the profile of many such partners, which is that he was also inclined to veto too quickly without really thinking about it, and to incorrectly think of currently-popular baby names as “weird” or “old lady/man names.” When I had a name I particularly liked, I would use this approach to avoid an auto-veto: I would say, “I have a name for you to consider. I don’t want you to react to it right away. I want you to think about it for awhile first.” Then I would say the name, say a few things about the name (including stats if applicable), say the name a couple more times, and leave the room. If I really loved the name, I would extend this process: I would include the name in emails sent to him on other subjects, or I would say it periodically out of the blue. In one case, I mentioned a scientist and an author with the same name. The goal was to familiarize him with the name before asking him to make any sort of decision on it.
In one case, we had the full name decided before the end of the first trimester (that was the time he picked the name he’d previously vetoed). That was disappointing to me: I like to draw out the process. In all the other cases, we had some pretty solid options going into the third trimester, but it was open enough that I could continue thinking about it until the birth if I wanted to, while leaning on the reassurance of having a name in place.
How did everyone else do it?
Name update:
Once I got to about 20 weeks we sat down to combine both of our lists. We started with about 50 names for boys and girls. Once a month we’d have a name meeting where we’d each rank names 1, 2, or 3. Names that got 3s from both of us, or a 2 and a 3, were eliminated. Eventually we got to a top 6 for each:
Arthur
Benedict
Edward
Sebastian
Theodore
WilliamAlice
Beatrix
Dorothy
Harriet
Matilda
OliviaI thought we’d go in with a final 2 for each, but once we got that far we knew what the top choices were: Sebastian and Beatrix. Our baby girl was born in March this year, and we love her name!
My process might be a little different as I am a woman who is married to anther woman, and talking about stuff is basically our favorite hobby. I will say that I love hypothetical conversations more than my wife, so I dragged her into baby name discussions before we ever even considered having a baby of our own. (This makes sense as I am the type of person who reads this blog and she is not.) I am fortunate that we both have similar tastes in baby names (classic/traditional names), so we were starting from similar places.
For our actual human baby that is due in seven weeks, I think we spent a lot of time talking about general preferences/categories before seriously discussing specific names. Skimming through The Baby Name Wizard book together was helpful here. Family names are important to her but not to me, and I was pleased to discover that my VERY FAVORITE boy name (Harvey) happened to be the name of her beloved grandfather. Hooray!
We seemed to have little conversations about baby names all along throughout the pregnancy, usually when we were out on walks in our neighborhood, which is generally when we tend to discuss things. But we would pose possibilities to each other whenever they occurred to one of us, either from a stray thought or from seeing/hearing a name somewhere. I think the most productive way to create our short list was to download the Baby Name app to each of our phones and link our accounts together so we could separately swipe left/right on a bunch of names and then see where we agreed. There were a few surprise names of agreement there, and it was helpful to have a concrete list instead of vague senses of agreement/disagreement about certain front-runners.
One other interesting part of our process was the surname. It took very little conversation to agree that we would keep our birth surnames when we got married because neither of us really felt strongly about changing them, and at the time, we didn’t plan to have children anyway. (Ha!) Since I am carrying our baby and she has my DNA, I found that it was really important for me that the baby have my wife’s surname. My wife was pretty pleased by this. We also agreed to use my wife’s grandmother’s first name for the baby’s middle name, so I more or less got free rein on the first name (with my wife retaining veto power, of course). We had basically decided on this baby’s name by week 22 or 23 of pregnancy, after finding out the baby’s sex at 20 weeks. I thought the whole process was super fun, and I almost wish there were a second baby hiding in there so we could do it again.
This makes me so happy to read – I’m also in a same-sex female relationship and we are gearing ourselves up to start the baby journey next year :) Big congratulations to the both of you on your little bundle!
Haha I love your first sentence, we also talk about everything, in depth, all the time. I think we first had a conversation about baby names about a month into dating and while I obviously usually instigate the conversation she tolerates my want to talk names quite often. Over the past few years I have definitely seen the ‘exposure method’ work well, a name I love that was originally straight out vetoed (think along the likes of Ernestine or Thomasina) is now our front running hypothetical girls name. I now keep a running list of names I love and mention them often just to familiarize the name so when we finally have the opportunity to name our own my favourites aren’t vetoed purely on the ‘what even is that name’ reaction.
Also I loved reading about how you made the decision about surnames. I think we are heading towards the double-barreled option, and while I love that for myself (and future wife) it does bother me that our children will have a decision to make when they are adults and figuring out how to name their children/take a married name. Although that is a whole other topic…
I’m totally intrigued by the Baby Name app by the way and am going to immediately download it! Just need to figure out now how soon is too soon to start having the ‘real’ name conversations without crossing the line – argh it’s like a tightrope. I wonder if it’s better or even worse when the both of you are namenerds?!
We had a similar process to Squirrel Bait (congrats by the by). My partner (male) and I kept our own surnames, and because the first and middle names were more important to me than the surname I had choosing and he had vetoing power. In the end, we talked about two or three times about the names I was thinking about using. He never vetoed anything, but did let me know what his preferences would be. I strongly prefer a family name, and had our first child’s name picked as soon as it’s sex was known. Our second took a little longer, but we were done by the beginning of the third trimester.
I’m lucky in that my partner is a very much into hypothetical conversations. Therefore he doesn’t mind discussing baby names. The one restriction is that I must keep the conversation short. He doesn’t mind talking about the merits of a specific name, but only one, maybe 2, at a time, not an entire list. He will go over an entire list, but not dive deep into any of the names, just “first impression” type comments.
Even know, when we are still actively preventing another pregnancy, he’s will to talk about baby names with me. He will throw a name out there for discussion whenever he come across one that intrigues him, although they are usually of the weird/rare or sci-fi/fantasy realm. And he will respond thoughtfully when I randomly say “Hey! What do you think about the name _____?”
With our first, we had a list of about 10 names for each gender by 20 weeks when we found out the gender. It took until 31-weeks for us to settle on “the” name. I only remember the weeks, because it was the week of Christmas and we decided to tell out families at Christmas, even though we’d previously said we wouldn’t tell (or decide) until baby was born.
For our second, we had discussed names in the first trimester, and had vague lists for each gender, although the girls list was more solid that the boys. We had an “early” (16 weeks) gender ultrasound at a place about a 40 min drive from our house, and found out baby was a girl. On the way home we discussed names for her, and realized we both were very strongly preferring one name from our list, but expecting the other to not prefer it. We decided/agreed upon her name on that car ride home less than an hour after finding out she was a girl.
For hypothetical baby#3 – we mostly have a boy name picked out already. It was a strong contender for baby#1 and Baby#2, but it always felt like it was right for that baby. I remember Swistle one time saying something about thinking of all her babies in Storkland (where babies come from) waiting to be born, and thinking that baby#2 would be Sam but in the baby named Bob came from Storkland instead and Sam came next as baby#3. I’m doing an awful job at telling that story, but it really stuck with me, and summarizes how I fell about my hypothetical baby#3. He is Sam (not the real name we’ve decided FYI). And of course we didn’t name baby #1 Sam, a name we love, that’s not his name – it’s his younger brother.
My first two were both boys and super easy. I conceded to use my husband’s legacy name for our firstborn son with the understanding that I get first choice in all other children. So our first son is IV, and then our second son was an honor name from my side (James) and my patron saint’s name (Anthony) – which was also meaningful as we were living in San Antonio at the time. If he had been a girl though I would have gone with a name that my husband was really not a fan of though, because I was feeling so salty about IV. I kind of regret the legacy name, but in the big scheme of things I guess it’s not a big deal.
For my daughter, we had tossed around a ton of ideas, and then on the day that we had the ultrasound and found out she was a girl, her name came to us and we immediately knew that was her. Rosemary is now 16 months and it is the perfect name for her that makes me beam with happiness whenever I think about it!
Now we’re 8 weeks along with our probably last baby!
My husband likes to talk about names, but he often gets stuck on one I said I kind of liked and then runs with it and refuses to consider other names with the “But you said you liked it!” argument coming up over and over and over and me having to explain that I like a lot of things but don’t necessarily want them every single day for the rest of my life. When we first got married his taste was more in the “mom name” category like Laura and Lisa and Ashley–peer names–but he’s come around to more modern (aka old lady) baby name taste as I’ve exposed him to the lists!
I’m really hoping that this baby’s name will just come to us after we find out if it’s a boy or girl, especially because I have pretty much NO boy names on my list.
So even though I have “final say” on all the baby names after IV, in reality we work together and try to find something we both like…or at least something I love and he doesn’t hate, haha!
In our house, the conversations were like moves in the game RISK. I had to plan a strategy, gain ground, and declare victory. It was all about knowing husband’s mood and interest level (usually nil).
With #1, I took about 6 months to narrow down a list to 5 from which he chose his fave- after a cursory, 5 second reading of said list. With #2, I wavered the entire pregnancy and at one point (about 6 months) he gave in and said to name her whatever I wanted! “Just please let’s stop talking about it!” Which was too much to process in 3rd trimester and I ended up going with our compromise name in the end, which I did and do still love, but is not my heart of hearts favorite.
Luckily I had girlfriends equally as obsessed with the discussion of names to get my fix and strategy worked out before I brought it home for decisions.
Our process was I bought a baby name book after finding out the sex. I highlighted names I liked in yellow and names I really liked in blue. Doug looked at the list of blue names (Desmond, Galen, Calen, and Lian) and we weeded out the last three because of various reasons. His first middle name is after my dad and step dad since they are both Michael. Second middle name is tradional on Doug’s side. Firstborn sons are Blank Orville, and Des is the 6th generation.
We talked a lot about names before we were ever expecting, but once it was Real I refused to discuss until we found out the sex (which was 14 weeks). I didn’t want to do all that work only to find out my favorite was the other sex, hah.
Once we knew she was a girl, we started thinking up names. We knew we wanted to use my maiden name as the baby’s middle name regardless of sex and I took my husband’s last name upon marriage (and moved maiden to my middle), so baby’s middle and last name would model mine (and husband’s last, obviously).
My husband wanted to do an “E” name if possible because of a tradition on his side of first/middle initial nicknames. His grandfather went by “E.B.” and my maiden starts with a “B” so it was perfect. So we came down to three “E” names and Eleanor won. My MIL almost exactly guessed the name out of thin air too, so we took it as a sign that it was the correct one. We didn’t officially name her until 28 weeks. Our sweet Ellie just turned one this week!
Before we got married, we had names for our hypothetical son or daughter (Alexander John and Emily Anne), then by the time I actually got pregnant, one of my cousins had an Emma and my sister had an Ella and then another cousin had an Emily, so we decided to go back to the drawing board. While we were looking for girls names, we stumbled upon Fordon as a name for a boy (and it looked like it was written in letters of fire if you know what I mean), so Alexander John went out the window.
Then my husband wanted Andromeda and I wanted Margaret and we weren’t budging. The very next day, we found out we were having a boy. So. Good thing, because we still can’t agree on girls names.
My husband and I have been married for 6 years, together for 10. During that time I have always had some sort of running name list, but tried not to talk to him about it until a couple years before we started trying to get pregnant. Occasionally I would just throw a name or two out and ask what he thought. He HATES talking about baby names, it is really really frustrating. Once I actually was pregnant he would not have any name conversations until we knew the sex. We found out at 11 weeks and then he was willing to talk. He has NEVER come up with a single name on his own, so I basically handed him my boy name list of ~22ish names. He came back to me with 5 he would be OK with- Luke, Owen, Charles, Henry, and Connor. We sat on those names for most of the pregnancy, and then slowly whittled away at them. First went Luke- I totally soured on it, felt too biblical for me (a Jew) and I realized I couldn’t see having my son have that name. Next my husband decided he didn’t really like Connor. Henry I loved but our last name ends in ley and it sounded too sing songy with our last name, so I crossed that off. Owen was crossed off for some reason I now can’t remember, and so we were basically left with Charles nn Charlie. Although we had basically decided a few weeks before he was born, we didn’t agree definitively until he had actually arrived, just in case we had a last minute change of heart.
I must say Charles is like a million years from a name I ever thought I would use. I honestly still don’t LOVE the name Charles- it feels old person to me, but I love Charlie and love that he has a formal name that could be used in any situation if he so chooses.
Short version: do name training, make lists, be open to creative compromise.
My husband didn’t have nearly the interest in baby naming that I do, but that’s to be expected because I’m the sort of person who still reads a baby name blog despite knowing I will most likely never need to choose a baby name again.
I’m also the sort of person who had a hypothetical baby name list long before I was actually pregnant. My husband would occasionally chat names with me so I had a sense of his preferences before I got pregnant. During all three pregnancies I never really wanted to talk baby names until after the first trimester for fear of jinxing things, but I would start a mental list and then once I had a few reassuring ultrasounds I’d start bringing up baby names as the urge would strike me.
My husband rarely suggested names, and when he did he had a tendency to suggest names of our family members or friends even though we had both explicitly discussed NOT wanting to use names of people we knew. But I found that he just literally couldn’t come up with names that weren’t already familiar to him. So we defaulted to me suggesting names and him either saying “yes, add it to the maybe list” or “definitely no.”
I did have to do a lot of Name Lessons, where I would show him social security stats and explain how a name he thought was obscure was actually pretty common, or a name that sounded old fashioned was stylish, or the name Wendy was a middle-aged lady name or whatever (side note, what is it with guys and the name Wendy?!). In this way my husband came around to some names he initially vetoed, and in fact my second child has a name that was on his Absolutely Not list during the first pregnancy. I almost didn’t bother bringing it up during my second pregnancy because I remembered he disliked it the first time around, but it was still one of my favorites and three years later for whatever reason he was fine with it and it’s now my second child’s name. So repeat exposure helps!
With our first two children we found out the sex of the baby at the ultrasound at 20 weeks. And in both cases as soon as I knew the sex one name on the Maybe list rose to the top and I felt fairly confident it was the one. And in both cases my husband agreed. With both kids we didn’t announce the name ahead of time so we could change our minds without awkwardness if we wanted to, but in both cases we ended up using the name we had decided on at about 20ish weeks.
The third baby was the hardest because we decided not to find out the sex until the birth. I had also made a ridiculous agreement that if my husband’s favorite sports team won the championship he could name the baby after his favorite player. DO NOT DO THIS. It seemed a totally safe bet at the start of the season because the team is usually terrible but lo and behold two months before my due date the team won the championship and my husband was on cloud nine and was dead set on going through with our agreement. So then we had to negotiate about whether we were actually going to do something so crazy and name our kid after a living sports figure (who still has a lifetime in which to become notorious for something!). I eventually decided it did make kind of a fun naming story and the name is common enough that the baby could either embrace the story behind the name or ignore it completely and nobody would ever even think to ask because the name isn’t unusual, so I compromised and said it could be the middle name. Fortunately it’s unisex enough to work for a boy or girl. So we had a middle name but still no first names. Nothing felt right, possibly because we didn’t know who we were naming.
Finally five weeks before my due date I gave my husband a baby name book and said ,”Make a list of anything you would be okay using”. We ended up having one boy name overlap, although neither of us loved it and it still didn’t feel “right”. With the girl name list we ended up having partial overlap on one name where I had picked a longer, frillier variation of the name and he has picked the simple version (think “Belle” and “Isabella” for instance). I realized there was an in-between version (Isabel in this example) and I simultaneously realized I liked the in between version more than my original pick. He agreed and finally we had a girl name that felt like The One. The boy name never did quite click and feel right, but as it turned out the baby was a girl so it didn’t matter. And although I love all three of my kids’ names very much, her compromise name is probably my favorite, middle name and all!
Before we ever had a baby twinkle in our eyes, I casually mentioned the name of our favorite song and said, “If we ever have a girl, I think that would make a cool name.” He casually agreed.
Four years later, we were expecting a girl. That’s her name.
Since then, we’ve adopted five more children. They have all been big surprises and resulted in immediate emergency adoptions. (Our quickest was three minutes…no joke). SO, now we keep a running list on my phone of any name either of us likes that could fit in with the rest of the pack. We always believe we’re done having kids, but the lists remain. Each time, he says, “Get out the list!” We discuss options earnestly, pray about it, and find whichever rad moniker fits best.
Oddly, we add the most names when we’re on a road trip. Most of the family is asleep, we don’t have to stare at each other, and there’s really nothing else to do but snack. It’s laid-back, and he knows I love names.
I have eight kids so I smile every time Swistle writes that the first few are easier to name. Amen. I went into the marriage with 10 names that I loved, five girl and five boy. My husband picked his top favorite girl name and top favorite boy name from those lists and the first two were named. Easy. My husband never cared about middles and I did, so I picked all the middle names (all family names) without his ever making a comment.
The other six were much, much, much harder to name. My husband has never offered forth any name suggestion except Withington Cheesemore, which he still thinks is funny all these years later. Our process was different with each baby. Usually, though, I would put together a list of names and then give my husband pretend veto power from that list. It didn’t always work. We had a name picked for baby number four and then neither of us felt that the baby looked like the name we had chosen so my husband said, “He looks like an Eli,” and I agreed and Eli he became. I did let my hubby veto Clementine, even though I thought it would kill me, because at the end of the day, my husband cared more than I did. Number 5, husband just let me have what I wanted because I cared more than he did. Number six was ridiculous. I am picky with girl names but love most boy names so I came up with over 50 names that I liked and my husband vetoed EACH AND EVERY ONE without providing any names of his own. That’s when I called it and said, here are my two favorites. You may pick one of those two or I will pick what I want. He ended up picking my favorite name, so that was great for me. I seriously wanted to kill my husband by the time we named Oskar. Baby number seven my husband let me think he was okay with the name I had picked, only to tell me in the hospital that he didn’t like it. The conversation didn’t end well, and my husband left the hospital hours after baby girl was born, mad. He came back the next day and asked to hold the baby using the name that I wanted, so I didn’t say anything and just filled out that birth certificate ASAP. Baby number 8, I let my husband pick both first and middle as a peace offering after the 7th. Besides, he wanted the first name I wanted and I could get the middle name I wanted out of the middle name he wanted, so that was easy. I call her Annabel Fay (my mom’s middle name) and rarely call her by her actual full name, Annabel Sofia, but my husband is happy and I’m happy.
To sum up, there is no such thing as compromising and the person who cares most usually wins, and naming a lot of babies can be very, very challenging!! The babies themselves can also be challenging, but that’s an entirely different discussion. :)
I love these stories!
So my husband is not one to think of names himself much. Same with home decor. But once I mention one thing that he likes, that is THE one forever and ever and nothing will make him like something else better. Thankfully I discovered this about him with home decor BEFORE we started talking baby names. So my strategy was to ONLY ever suggest a name that I liked well enough to have it be the one. Conclusion: I love both our kids names very very much. Our boy’s name is my favorite boy name. And our girl’s name is one of about 3 favorite girl names.
Oddly enough, once the first name was chosen he was a lot more involved and interested in discussing various potential middle names. And I didn’t care as much about the middle, so I was willing to suggest more options there too.
Oh my goodness are we married to the same man?
We had had “parameter” discussions long before the pregnancy, so we knew we were basically on the same page. With my eldest, the first initial (after my late stepfather) was important, and we knew we wanted a Welsh or Celtic name. I followed a family naming pattern for her middle, and he was ok with it.
For our youngest, I had mentioned a relatively standard name that he said was too Biblical/Hebrew (we’re atheists) and he wanted a Roman name. Those kind of pronouncements don’t always stick, but when we got the results of the amino, I knew right away – Roman-name Feminine version of my grandfather’s name. I announced it and told him he was welcome to talk me out of it. He didn’t even try.
I am enjoying these naming stories quite a bit, but do feel like I’m left wanting more when I don’t know what all of the kiddos are named!
My husband and I have maternal grandmothers who are/were both named Gloria. When we first discovered this early in our relationship, we joked that if we ever had a daughter we would have to name her Gloria…fast forward 8 years and we were having a daughter! We didn’t feel obligated to use a family name and don’t feel obligated for future children, but we just kept coming back to Gloria.
I was convinced that I didn’t want to decide for sure prior to her birth—I wanted to have 2-3 solid options and see who she was when we met face-to-face. But somewhere around 30 weeks I just felt confident that that was her name. We waited until she was born to decide her middle name, although even lining up some contenders was hard because my husband assumed he was the chief veto-er without so much as making a single suggestion. Eventually I actually directed him to this blog, which helped him take things a little more seriously and gave him some of his own suggestions. We ended up with Gloria Eloise. I’m not sure what will happen for a second child, but I do know my husband is already more on board with even chatting names now, and doesn’t “get weird” when I bring them up when one strikes my fancy.
I also think these stories are super fun!!! To help you out, we named our eight kids: Miriam Nicole, Cowen Timothy, Emeline Beckie (I really wanted her to be Clementine, but we call her Emeline Bea and I love it), Eli Wilford, Harriet Franceszka, Oskar John, Clover Mildred (lucky number seven–sometimes we call her Lucky), and Annabel Sofia.
I love Gloria Eloise!! So pretty!!
Ahhh thanks, Andrea and Stephanie! Those are some beautifully named people.
Wow! Your childrens names are beautiful, you have excellent taste
Thank you!!! That was so kind.
Ours are Miles Matthew and Thea Rose :)
Gwendolyn Elspeth and Julia Robyn. I still love seeing them typed out.
It was good to read your story, Swistle, because it was so similar to ours!
I was thinking of baby names as soon as we got married, before and during pregnancies, infertility workups, and pregnancy losses. So it was an alternately exciting and sad topic. We ended up with one child, and her name took an absurdly short time to settle one once we have the 20 week ultrasound with the gender. I did continue to keep my excel list, run names by him, buy the updated Wattenburg, but he really had his mind set on Elizabeth Camille and so did I.
Like Paul during that pregnancy with the secret win, Robert liked to lock it down early and not entertain other possibilities. I made it into a challenge to myself: what name could possibly take down the current favorite? I still remember some of the names we considered for the last pregnancy, which ended in miscarriage. Anne. Theresa. Katherine. Robert. James. It’s so bittersweet, but I’m glad I got to dream of a baby and argue about its name one more time.
I love Camille! One of the biggest bummers for me is that my husband rejected this name outright because he had a college professor whose first name he THINKS was Camille, and he didn’t like her very much. Sigh.
Ha ha!
My son is five months old. I chose his name about 15 years ago, when I was in high school, as an homage to a character from a favorite television show. The character is intelligent and perseverant, which is what the name came to mean to me; it’s also the name of a woodland creature known for its smarts, which was a bonus. (Ironically, the character on the show hated his name–but it works much better in 2018 and beyond than it would have in the 90s!)
The two serious boyfriends I had before the one who would eventually become my husband both rejected the name. I can now see that their rejections were symbolic of the ways in which we weren’t a good fit! Boyfriend #1, who was pretty full of himself, didn’t have any particular issue with the name itself, but couldn’t handle the fact that HE hadn’t chosen it. Boyfriend #2, who it turned out didn’t actually like a lot of things about me (including my geeky sci-fi side), thought the show was dumb and that the name was accordingly weird. Both boyfriends also had the affliction of a lot of husbands discussed around here–they were stuck on names that would have been great for 80s babies, but totally anachronistic on a baby of our kids’ generation. Later, ex-boyfriends!
I was hesitant to share the name with my now-husband because I was sure he would reject it. He eventually pried it out of me and didn’t love it immediately–he had to sit on it. By the time we were starting to plan for an actual baby, though, he had (1) fallen so in love with it that he wouldn’t consider any other names and (2) forgotten it wasn’t his own idea. I now recommend a version of that accidental tactic to friends who want to convince their partners to use names the partners don’t love right away!
(Before we actually named the baby, I had to use SSA stats to confirm that it wasn’t suddenly about to explode in popularity. It took a sizable leap between 2015 and 2016, but evidently dropped out of the top 1000 again in 2017–so I feel comfortable.)
We now have a girl name chosen (one I chose but that I feel a lot less tied to than my son’s name), and again my husband doesn’t seem to want to think about any other options. Part of me wants to try to get him attached to a different name I’m now liking better, but the other part wants to take the second win and run with it! Particularly since the kids will have his last name.
I mean, assuming we have another child, as we hope to, and that it’s a girl. On subsequent boy names, I’m completely in the weeds.
Got very distinctive theme music in my head now…
We have two girls but didn’t find out gender either time. For our first girl we had talked about her name before we were pregnant – it was actually a name my husband had heard of when working in India – Neelam. So i give him credit for that one! My husband liked to joke (still not a hundred percent sure it was a joke) about giving kids five middle names, we compromised with 2 each. When we were pregnant again we quickly decided we still loved our boys name (Kavi) but husband wouldn’t discuss names properly until about week 30 so I kept a running Google keep list we could both access (mostly he just crossed off names I liked and he hated). At one point I started referring to the baby as “Audrey or Cameron” (names he hates) just to get him to make a decision! We eventually went with a name I found and loved – Amaya.
We had a sort of ongoing conversation and then I went to sleep one night and when I woke up one of my maybe names was The Name. Hubs wasn’t convinced at first but I made him really consider it and luckily the name means something meaningful to us so we used it. I love it so much.
Pregnant again (super early so definitely not naming it yet) and kind of expecting the same to happen, so If all goes well I’ll probably work on keeping the circle of potential names quite wide (hubs loves a veto, is just as likely as Paul to change his mind about a veto, so we maintain separate lists and I don’t remove ones he vetoes!) and won’t worry about narrowing it down until the third trimester (although I think we picked in the second last time)
We always chatted about names in the car and would just keep a sort of mental running list. Once we have a list of generally pleasing names to him, he doesn’t really care and I can pick. He tends to be most swayed by name connections. So he rejected Oliver because of Oliver Cromwell, even though his immediate reaction was very positive, and he rejected Theodore until I said it was the name of his favorite author, Theodore (Fyodor) Dostoevsky, and now he has declared it The Name for another boy. I usually like a name and then like it more if it has connections to other things, not like it exclusively because of meaning/connection. I’ve been pretty successful in defending a name too by bringing exhaustive arguments about a name I wanted. I dont know if he changes because he loves me, because he is tired of arguing, or because the arguments are effective, but I’ll take it ha.
With our first, my husband and I had a top girl name and top 2 boy names decided shortly into the pregnancy. My husband was very excited and actively participated/shared names. He actually came up with the girls’ name on his own and I loved it. Then we found out our first was a boy, so the girl name was put on hold for a future child and we “sat” on our two favorite boy names for two months. After awhile I was not feeling our #1 choice anymore (Jonathan). Originally, we were thinking about using it has a double honor name: my grandfather (who had passed away) and his cousin (who had also passed away), but then too many relatives had some variation of the name. In fact, one side of my husband’s family surname is John! I started to feel like our son would not have a name that was “his”, you know what I mean? I like honor names but this excessive. So one day I asked my husband if he was okay with us going with our #2 choice instead, and I told him why. Apparently, he had been thinking along the same lines. So our oldest’s name is Benjamin (nn Benji).
Our second child also was a boy. My poor husband, sooooo very excited about possibly having a girl, actually fell into minor depression (not really but in relation to baby-names) that he just could not get himself to like another boy name. I went through thousands of names for months, and he said: “I just really love Benjamin and was excited about a girl. I am having a hard time coming to like another boy name.” Personally, I was debating between Theodore and Matthew, but neither name got a good response from him. It got to the point where I began throwing random names I did not even like at him at random times, trying to find SOMETHING that give him a hint of the sparkle that he had the first go around. One day after work, I decided to through a co-worker’s name out there. Zachary. My husband paused, turned his head slightly to one side, and said: “You know… it isn’t bad.” So I said it again. “Yeah, I think I like it. Zachary, Zack, Zackster.” So I decided I could like Zachary, too, as long as I chose the middle. Our second son is officially Zachary and it fits him well.
We may or may not be expecting baby #3 (very unexpected and unplanned). Once we know for sure (next week), we are very much hoping we can use our favorite girl’s name. If it is a boy, my husband might have a nervous break down so I might decide for the both of us.
We were 100% same as Swiftlets and Paul. In fact, 2nd baby came down to my heart of hearts favorite- for a bit- and a suggestion from hubby. We were having a girl and I was prepared to use my boy name. I talked about it SO much and for SO long that he gave in just to end the discussion.
Families we know with the most interesting names either have great stories where the kids’ names are so meaningful they were easily agreed upon, or as one family has four kids with such on trend matched surname-names that I am 100% certain the husband just said “ok whatever you decide honey”, haha.
Edits- *for a boy
And sorry for the name mash, Swiftlet (lol)
Full disclosure, the name I loved was Reid. In my 8th month I met a high school girl in my town with the name and was like “YES! I’m doing it!” But… in the end when I met baby girl she was a Corinne instead (hubby’s suggestion).