What’s in a Name?

Naming a baby sounds like so much fun in theory! It’s a great game when you’re a teenager and naming future babies that you can’t even imagine having. That said, thank God I grew out of some of those names!

The real thing is a little more complicated. Suddenly we’re responsible for giving a real person a real name that he’s going to have for his whole life! (don’t screw this up, Peach!) There are things to take into account like: initials, monograms, nicknames, associations with famous people, family names, and on and on. And two people deciding is much harder than just one teenage girl. Sure I like the name Jacob, but Pip’s dad has a bad memory of a Jacob once upon a time. He might like David, but that’s an ex-boyfriend of mine. Darn! We also wanted a name that not everyone has. The NameVoyager tool was great for this!

Anyway, that kind of trouble is NOTHING compared to the voices from the village. The first question almost anyone has is, “so, have you thought of names?” Being first time parents, we of course shared our ideas with everyone at first. Boy, was this a mistake. It turns out everyone has an opinion about what our Pip should be named. And, while it’s relevant if a name belonged to my crazy ex, it simply doesn’t matter that the name we like best belonged to an enemy of an acquaintance. Our families, too, seem to feel they have veto power over the names we choose.

In reality, of course, whatever we decide to name Pip, our families and friends will love him the same. Once he is born, even if they think our choice in name was absurd, they won’t tell it to our faces like they do now. They’ll wait to talk about how crazy we are until we leave, like decent people. 😉 I just wish everyone would think about that part now. What if we choose Sylvester and you think that’s a stupid name, and you told us so? We’re not going to forget that in a few months when Pip comes out, and you may wish you had kept your feelings to yourself.

I know what really is happening is that everyone is tapping into that fun teenage-girl “ooh, I want to name something!” excitement. I honestly love hearing what everyone else would name Pip if it were up to them. But because it can be upsetting when people we love have criticisms of our favorite names, we have decided to keep Pip’s name a secret until he’s born, even though we are pretty sure we know what it is.

So until he’s here, Pip he shall be! Did you have this experience when naming your kids? What are some of your favorite names?