Week 35: What’s in a name?

In my opinion, giving your child a name is one of the most intimidating parts about being a parent. There are so many things to consider and so many ways things can go terribly wrong. What if my child grows up hating his name? I suppose that he could always change it later if he despises it that much. Will his name fit him through every stage of life? All of these trendy names now sound cute for early childhood years, but no business woman wants to introduce herself as Apple in the workplace. Will there be a handful of other kids with the same name in his grade forcing him to go through school with the first letter of his last name tagged to his name? (For my generation this was Ashley; there were always anywhere from two to four of them in every class.)
Then you can also get into the meaning of the name. Is it a family name? Does it mean something powerful or special to you? If so, this is just icing on the cake. The tough part is actually picking the name, that is if you and your partner can decide on a name. This was where we hit a snag with both of our kiddos.
During our first pregnancy, my husband and I had a list of names that we liked, and we slowly narrowed them down until we had our final two favorites. Girl names were so easy for us, and we knew we were having a girl pretty early on. This meant the hardest part was narrowing the list down. We did this at about month seven.
Once we had our two favorites, one was his favorite and the other was mine, we decided we would choose which one best fit our daughter when we met her in the delivery room. The moment we saw her, we both agreed that one name fit much better than the other even though we didn’t agree going into it. I have a theory that after watching me go through labor and delivery without and pain meds that I could have insisted my daughter be named something completely random and my husband would have obliged.
This pregnancy has been the opposite because we are having a boy. We have a list of about 12 names, but we don’t actually love any of them. This has made narrowing it down to two names feel nearly impossible. We practice using the names when talking about him, and none of them feel right. All of our usual requirements and considerations have gone out the window, and all bets are off at this point. I’m fairly certain we may leave the hospital without a name. For this type A, plan-loving mama that sounds like the end of the world. Maybe we will just keep calling him “Baby Boy.” That’s a perfectly acceptable name, right? Well, here’s to hoping that we have some sort of miraculous epiphany either before or right after he is born that will tell us exactly what the perfect name for this little man is.