{"id":13800,"date":"2018-10-08T07:52:30","date_gmt":"2018-10-08T11:52:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/?p=13800"},"modified":"2019-08-28T06:30:08","modified_gmt":"2019-08-28T10:30:08","slug":"baby-naming-issue-the-process-of-choosing-a-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/2018\/10\/08\/baby-naming-issue-the-process-of-choosing-a-name\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Naming Issue: The Process of Choosing a Name"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi Swistle,<\/p>\n

I wonder if we could have a discussion on how parents go about the process of choosing a name.<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

Thanks!
\nEmma<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

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:<\/p>\n

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.)<\/p>\n

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!<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How did everyone else do it?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Name update:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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:<\/p>\n

Arthur
\nBenedict
\nEdward
\nSebastian
\nTheodore
\nWilliam<\/p>\n

Alice
\nBeatrix
\nDorothy
\nHarriet
\nMatilda
\nOlivia<\/p>\n

I 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!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-name-update","category-reference"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-3AA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13800"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14321,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13800\/revisions\/14321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}