Well here’s a helpful hint for those non-parents, if there are any and read this…
Baby name books don’t really help you CHOOSE a name, they help you eliminate names, and thereby I suppose eventually help you choose a name. I went to the library and picked up 2 books. The one that was helpful in a sort of way was “beyond Jennifer & Jason Madison & Montana” — It’s a few years old and the most helpful thing about it was somewhere near the end of the book one particular tip. It was:
Consider that you may have more than one child and whatever you name your first child, you will not be able to use on subsequent children. Same thing with naming your second or third, if you want them to all go together, try not to make them all matchy-matchy (like a family we knew was Jeanna, Nina, and Serena- oh and their middle names rhymed too) or all starting with the letter J (Jason, Jaime, Jenna, Jake) or that sort of thing.
That advice was actually helpful to me as we kept talking about it more and more, if we use one particular name, then we wouldnt be able to use another, as some of the names we have picked out may cross over with middle and first names, and that’s just silly. The example they gave was having a girl named Roberta and calling her Bobbi and then having a boy and naming him Robert and calling HIM Bobby. See what I mean? That had really never crossed my mind before.
One thing we did (forgive if I’ve said this) is to take the names we are considering and print them out in a nice, bright color (like orange) –big enough to be seen across the room– and tape them to the nursery wall. Then go in at the beginning or end of the day and just look at them. See how they ‘look’ to you.
One other piece of advice is to ‘introduce yourself as your kid’ when you go out somewhere. Which I think is stupid. Then people aren’t going to know your real name. What WE found was more interesting and useful, was saying, to each other of course, Hi I’m “Tyler’s” mom [not a name we are considering, that’s my nephew’s name]– and seeing how it feels in your mouth. Or try, this is my daughter “Felice” [again total hogwash]…
Really, though, don’t go out and buy a baby name book for $12 (the price of the only one we found in a store)– go to your library and check one out and use it for ideas, or to dwindle your names down. That’s what we have done and so far we’re down to 10 combos of names. Not too bad, considering. Oh and be aware, there were at least 20 baby name books on the shelves. Good luck trying to pick one. 🙂
LOL! I remember picking my son’s name – we both have HUGE families so eliminated any duplications there – that took a lot of names right off the list.
Rhyming names – those came off next.
then funky initials…
then anything that had multiple possible spellings or pronunciations…
not much left after that…
Morgan’s name was suppose to be Alexis. But, I hated the possessive form of it. Hated it. As I was driving home from a doctor’s appointment, I turned onto the street one block from our house and glanced at the street sign. A street sign I had seen thousands of times. As I looked at it, I was all “Huh. Lookie there. I just named my daughter.” Her name is Morgan Alexis. And it totally suits her.
🙂
Hey there- found you through http://mdwestmom.blogspot.com/ and am late to the whole conversation, but am throwing in my $0.02 anyway.
The best ever tip we heard for choosing a name was to make sure when you say it 100x a day (softly, loudly, REALLY loudly)- you’re still in love with it. Or at least okay with it! I can’t believe how true that is…
And reading about your pregnancy is bringing back some fond memories of mine- which only ended 5-6 wks ago, but seems like it was in a distant galaxy! Thanks for writing…