The BIG question pregnant parents ask each other 1,273 times… at least

Haaaa we had our boy name picked out years ago. We had been TTC 5 years so around year 1 we had our boy name picked out just in case. But since then we've been having such hard times picking out a girl name! To this day we are not 100% set on a girl's name. We want the name to be unique and non familiar yet not strange either. We're sticking with biblical names or biblical related. We also will NOT tell anyone our names. We already made the mistake of telling our mothers a possible name or two and they both cringed. Big mistake. BIG. My mother makes it worse though by complaining and making fun of it too. Such remarks actually hurts my feelings. =( So we're not sharing. =) We do have a list of possible girl names just in case our baby (if it's a girl) doesn't "look" like a ______. =)

I say keep in mind that when they tell you the sex of the baby, it's not ALWAYS right. My cousin was told she was having a girl with her first and it turned to be a boy... her 2nd was the other way around (told her boy, and she had a girl). So just in case my husband and I made sure we picked a boy and a girl name...
It took us forever to agree on a girl name but once we agreed on a first name her middle name was easy... we didn't pick our boy name until a week before we found out we were having a little girl haha but now if she's born with something extra we'll have a name picked out hahaha.
Also something to think about, while we were picking out the boy name, my husband said one of his factors in a yes or no on a name was that he'd think to himself "what would i think if my daughter told me dad i'm dating ____." He told me it was kind of dumb but he felt that some names just make you think "oh my god please tell me my daughter is not dating that kind of guy" or will make you judge some one before you meet them.
I agree though that girls names are sooo much easier than boys names (espeacially with my picky husband hahaha)

The name game is really stressful. It took me forever to feel like I found a name that was "perfect". I ran it by the boyfriend, and of course he didn't like it as much as I did. But at the same time, he never once has suggested a name or even an idea. He's completely taken a backseat. So I ignored his objections, and didn't bring it up again. Now I'm 34 weeks and the name I chose IS the name we're naming our son. I did run the name by my family and they loved it, so did his family.

I think Claire is such a pretty name too. I really like it for a middle name for one of our first names, but Tarzan vetoed it. I think he didn't like it with the first name, but what a bummer! (I'm sure that I could convince him with some work :) )

Since I'm not going to get the joy of having another baby (sorta sad, sorta not), I wonder if I can convince my kids to name one of their daughters Claire one day?....that was my 'other' daughter baby-name that I loved...
I just think it's so classy and simple. You can't really change it or shorten it. It's just perfect :-)

Helen’s last blog post..Gonna Be a Wordpress Girl

Funny thing but I think that it is much easier to pick a nice girl's name then boy's. When I got pregnant the first time I was writting on a paper both gender names till we know what it is. When we've found out that it was a boy we still agonized over the names for a long time. I even had to post a poll online to help us decide. It was between: Raven, Ryan, Dylan and Cameron. The middle name was picked out right away Reese. We picked Dylan because it sounds the best with Reese.
Now I am pregnant the second time and we've managed to pick the girl's name 15 minutes after I've found out that I was pregnant. Danielle Alexis it is. I just have a feeling that I will have a girl. If it's a boy again, I am afraid that the agony of picking the name will start again.

Natalja

@Marijke - good call about the school teacher deal. It's crazy that you have to consider that, but when I think about it, I was one of the first kids to make fun of another kid because of their name!

@Helen - well, one of the girl names we both like is on the top 10 list for 2008 and I think also 2007. So I'm not sure what to do there. We'll have to think about a few others and see which one we like more. And if it happens to still be the one in the top 10, then oh well. We'll just hope the other 9 kids with the same name in her class are all popular!

And I 100% agree with all of the parents spelling their child's names in a weird way. Not sure what the deal is with that, but I can assure you that we won't be going that route. After all, I'm a horrible speller and want to be able to spell my own child's name. Ha ha!

I agree. Keep the names you're considering a secret. (you can tell us though, right?) heehee...kidding!
When I had my son and named him Devon- my aunt (who was like their grandma at the time because she was nearby and my parents weren't) called him George for 6 months because she didn't like the name we picked! I thought it was really cute actually.
My ex and I had a really hard time choosing our son's name. We couldn't agree on any names...until finally we agreed on Devon.
I suggest each of you making a baby names list. Do it independently, and then compare them. Take your time and use baby name lists for inspiration. Look up the most common names. You might want to avoid the trendiest names so your kid doesn't have 10 kids with her name in her classes. I've read that people with more 'classic' names with 'classic' spellings are generally better off. Studies have shown things like...more successful, more popular. Might be a load of psycho-babble...but fun to research anyway:-)
Off topic pet-peeve of mine: People who spell their kids' names weirdly to make them 'stand out' , like Allyson, or Aishlee or Kennadee or Kevan...Don't they know this will annoy the HELL out of their kid for their entire lives? LOL!

Helen’s last blog post..Sunday love

This is such an issue, it can be very stressful in many families. We went through it three times and we're pretty pleased with the outcome of all three.

Someone told me once that if you like a particular name, you should run it by an elementary school teacher first if you're concerned about teasing. A teacher can tell you which names get ripped apart and used to torture their bearers. I can't recall which, but there was one particular name that a teacher told me she'd never name her child because of what she'd seen other kids do to it. And, I do recall that it was a rather nice name

Hang in there. The right name will make itself known. Eventually. Even if your child is 13 and yells at you that she hates her name and should have been named Hilderoy or whatever.

Marijke’s last blog post..Watch a broadcast of a Cesarean section

Good ideas guys... that's what we'll do...

Since Jane and I are getting use to keeping A LOT of things secret because of our little secret pregnancy blog here, keeping the names we choose a BIG secret will be very easy for us to do!

We didn't know the sex of the baby and we didn't tell anyone the names we had picked out. We knew exactly what we wanted if it was a boy (which it was) but we had NO CLUE for a girl. Seriously, if that baby turned out to be a girl she wouldn't have had a name for at least a few hours. So don't sweat it, and don't tell people the name. It keeps them guessing and keeps them from turning their noses up at it.

That's so funny! I say the EXACT same thing all the time.... and actually was just telling our parents that last night at dinner.

J.D.’s last blog post..Baby Names books

I'd agree with Lin, DON'T share your baby names. People can be ridiculously judgmental. Once the baby's named, no one can say a thing, but if you tell them now, they feel entitled to offer their (sometimes rude) opinions. I like your strategy of telling them Alfred Sherlock O’Rielly Jose Hornus. We've got a list of cute names we share too - mainly Biff, Dirk and Butch. My mom constantly comes up with names she likes. My usual response is, "We'll take that under advisement." Hey, she had her chance to name her kids!

Hi Lin,

That's interesting... I never thought about thinking that our baby doesn't look like a ___ (the name we chose) after s/he is born and then choosing another name, but I can see how that could happen. And knowing how Jane and I are, we better be armed with 5-10 different names!

And as far as people sharing their opinions on the name(s) we end up choosing, I've already been avoiding that one. When people ask us, I quickly speak up and say, "Oh yes, we have a prefect name for a boy. It's actually one of my long-time family names, and my family asked me to promise we named our first child after my great, great, great, grandfather. His name was: Alfred Sherlock O'Rielly Jose Hornus the fourth and a half... of whatever names flow off the top of my head at the time. :) And then I get a stiff elbow from Jane into my gut.

My daughter and her boyfriend/fiance' are having the same issue. They now know they're having a girl, so that at least helps to narrow down the focus. One problem they've been running into is when telling family or friends the names they've considered for their little girl, seeing the turned up noses and disapproving looks, followed by a barrage of baby name dropping in an effort to sway the parents away from their chosen name.

When these situations filter back to me, I tell the parents It's Your Baby and your personal choice of what to name your baby. Not everyone will approve of the name you choose for your baby. Too bad, so sad. Choosing a name for a baby almost always brings up a bad memory or two of someone from the past that makes the name not so appealing.

Some people have found that even when they have a name picked out, the moment the baby is born the parents immediately feel like "she/he doesn't look like a _____" and end up picking another name for the baby. That's why I suggested to my daughter and her S.O. that they have a couple of possible names chosen in order of preference, keeping the other names as possible options if they too find their favorite doesn't quite fit when the baby is born.