Rachael writes:<\/p>\n
We decided that no matter what we name our baby, we weren’t going to tell anyone the name until the kid was born. My family has a habit of ruining names for mommies in the family, and our name choices, while not the most unusual, were not very common either. I wasn’t sure if they’d like the names or not, and inevitably there would always be someone who said, “Really? You’re naming your baby ______? Why not _______?” So we just wanted to avoid it altogether. So, since we weren’t spilling the name, we went ahead and found out the gender, just to give everyone something to get excited about, and we found out it’s a GIRL! Yes, everyone is very excited. I get emails periodically from my mom and my aunts that say things like, “I know you already have a name, but here’s my list, just in case,” – which is fine, I don’t mind that at all. My question for you is – do you really think that waiting until the baby is born will help ease the shock of a “non-traditional” name? All this time I’ve been telling myself that no one will care what the name is when they’re holding that beautiful baby, but now that we’re closer to “go time,” I’m not so sure! And how do you deal with a family who has made trips to the hospital for the sole purpose of getting one of their own to change a baby’s name? I’m just wondering what you and your readers would do with this situation. I mean, we have to tell them the name eventually…..right?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Oh dear. It’s true that not every family will respond well to the Surprise Name Reveal, even if they have the darling baby in their arms when they hear it. Some families are opinionated, and outspoken, and aren’t as easily squelched as others.<\/p>\n
One option would be to get it over with ahead of time in the hopes that you wouldn’t have to deal with it in the hospital. I mean, I know this leaves you without a reveal of any kind, but perhaps that would be better.<\/p>\n
Sometimes cheery frankness can help. “Okay, guys, at this point we’re NOT going to change her name! Enough! Now hold her so I can drink this beer.” “Now DON’T come all the way down here just to try to change my mind like you did when Michelle had her baby! The name is SET IN STONE. But do feel free to come all the way down here to bring me doughnuts.” “If you think you have something negative to say about the name, do please remember that I will resent you FOR ALL TIME, and still the name will be unchanged, and when she is older I will tell her you don’t like her name and she will resent you too.” “Uh-uh-uh! I sense you are about to say something unpleasant about the non-returnable name. Here, put a doughnut in there instead.” “*clap clap* All right! It is time to move on to the acceptance stage!”<\/p>\n
Everyone share stories: How did you brace for possible Name Complaints from friends and family? Did your ideas work or not? And what did you do if they didn’t work?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rachael writes: We decided that no matter what we name our baby, we weren’t going to tell anyone the name until the kid was born. My family has a habit of ruining names for mommies in the family, and our name choices, while not the most unusual, were not very common either. I wasn’t sure […]<\/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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3iyiG-1M4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6824","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=6824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6824\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swistle.com\/babynames\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}