Image courtesy of http://humanfertility.net/picking-baby-names/

Am not sure why, but how you choose your baby’s name is on my mind this afternoon…

With our first baby, we didn’t know if it was a girl or a boy, so we had boy names and girl names on a shortlist. When a son arrived, we were so grateful that it had all worked out in the end (there’d been a rush towards the end of the process and an emergency c section…) that the name didn’t feel like such a big issue. Nonetheless, we had to pick between Elliott and Max. We went with the former as the relatives were bounding down the corridor desperate to meet him.

With our second child, we knew we were having a boy, but there was still the shortlisting to do. But the problem was that we didn’t have hours of sitting around debating names. And Lovely Bloke felt that we couldn’t use any of the names from our other shortlist because that would be wrong, it was not giving our second child his own name, but more one that was a left over from the first time around. So we were debating William or Oliver. And in the end, after he arrived, I wanted Oliver and Lovely Bloke wanted William, so that’s what he was called, as I’d had two blood transfusions (I’m not great at the whole giving birth thing) and felt too weak to argue that much…

The things that drove our choices were:

1. We wanted something that other people weren’t picking. [That worked for E but not for W, bless him]
2. We wanted a name that wasn’t a family name, we wanted our boys to be their own people, without the burden of someone else’s history. [That worked for E, but not W, bless him. Although I only found out after we'd told everyone his name, when my mother in law helpfully announced it....]
3. We wanted a family name for a middle name. [Thankfully, we managed that one on both occasions...]
4. We didn’t want something that would sound too kooky. [I think we just about managed that as well. Time will tell I suppose]

What confuses me, is how parents pick baby names that they say up front, are after a pop star, famous person, or someone in the public eye? Aren’t most people in the public eye there for a fleeting moment of time, so why pick that name? And usually, it’s not their really name, it’s something designed to get attention, a stage name, instead of their real name.

What also confuses me , is how parents to be choose a baby’s name before they arrive. Lots of people do it, but to me, it seemed alien because I wanted to see my babies to check if the name would “fit” them…

Different strokes for different folks I suppose. How did you choose your baby’s name?