Saturday, May 14, 2011

What's in a Name?

It is so difficult to pick a name when you know there's going to be an actual human being to whom this name is attached. The decision rests all on you (and maybe one other person) as to what another person is called for the rest of their life. That's a huge deal.

I'm not being crippled into indecision because my baby is real now, and not just a future hypothetical in a conversation with my friends. No, the real problem is now that I have a husband and a married last name to go with him and a baby growing inside of me to name, so many names are so quickly off the list of acceptable options. To give a brief summary of the potential roadblocks:

If the Husband doesn't like a name, it's out.
If I don't like a name, it's out.
If the name could lead to unfortunate nicknames for our child, it's out.
If it reminds us of people we don't like: gone.
If it's too common: nixed.
If it's either blatantly made-up, overly-trendy, or pretentious-sounding: not a chance.
If it sounds too childish or too much like an incontinent 80-year-old, it's out.
If people will mistakenly assume we named our baby after some unfortunate celebrity or character from a ridiculous book/TV show/movie, it's a no go.

So what does this list of objections leave us with in the way of baby names? A surprisingly short list. Now, that may just be a good thing, because it leaves us less likely to be crippled by choice when the time for officially picking a suitable name comes around. Of course, then comes the issue of choosing a middle name to go with whatever first name we like. Or, the opposite problem of having loads of names that we think would work as middle names, but have no accompanying first name for the baby. Hmmm.

I know I have more than half of my pregnancy left to go, but I have a personal vow not to follow the footsteps of some family friends who took so long to name their third child after he was born, that now I don't even remember the kid's name! I just remember that he was "baby" for the first month or two of his life. My kid needs to have something it can be called once it's born. That's officially the point at which Baby and Piggly Wiggly no longer suffice.

So on the positive list of requirements, I need a name I won't get tired of having to say over and over. Preferably something easy to give a cute nickname to, but that won't sound infantile when baby grows up and goes to Stanford or Oxford or NYU...or Wake Forest! (No pressure, Piggly Wiggly, but your daddy is officially the only person in the immediate family who didn't go there. Just saying.) And something a bit off-the-beaten-track of names, like mine and the Husband's names are.

In the meantime, I'll do my best not to go numb between the ears after looking at list after list of names - most of which will be awful for one reason or another. Of course, my life, at least, would be much easier if I gave up on caring and just named the baby something truly awful like DeShawn Ramon or Moonbeam Astroturf Lemoncello. But then, I remember that I don't want my child to have any reason to sneak into my room armed with a steak knife and malevolent homicidal rage at some point in the future, so DeShawn and Moonbeam are not viable options.


  1. please name piggly wiggly la-a, pronounced ladasha! or perhaps bookcase?

  2. haha, I forgot about La-a! This, Boo, is why you are brilliant. ;-)