Friday, January 4, 2008

Name Game

Okay, I know - it is a long way off but knowing what I know about Kevin and I - we are indecisive and, like most couples, we struggle to agree on names. I am going to enlist your help. Look we had no trouble with girl names last time. Every one of them sounded good. Now I look at that list we had and I am not as "excited" about the names we had. Kevin was like "why not just go with the girl name we picked out for Matthew?" Men. I told him that was Matthew's girl name, we need another!

This time oddly enough choosing boy names was less difficult and we sort of settled on one but I have cold feet about it. It is a name that was not so common three years ago but I have noticed recently it is becoming more and more common so therefore I am sort of vetoing it for the moment. The thing is this is really a moot point until week 20 when we find out the sex of the baby BUT I am still obsessed about it. I will not feel complete unless I start a list and check it twice.

We/I want something interesting and SORT of unusual but not too unusual. Seriously. I like unusual names but when it comes down to it I think in 20 years can a little kid grow into that name??? And also I fear the fact that most names that are unusual are actually common now a days. Matthew while supposedly a common name and always on the top 10 list is actually less common than one would expect (or at least in our experience thus far.) I actually really love "traditional names" and when I say that I mean old fashioned... I am struggling with this name schizophrenia - the old versus new thing. OMG, I am freaking neurotic, no? You can agree with me, I have no doubt I am neurotic on this topic (and this topic only DAMMIT!)

Look, we came up with Matthew in the 11th hour. Around the same time we picked out his crib six weeks before he was born! I was freaking out because the names we initially picked - well there was an incident that I will not speak about but I freaked out and decided we needed to start over. Matthew (my son) is actually named after one of Kevin's good friends. He had a massive heart attack at the age of 26 and died in 2004. Kevin was very sad about his friend and he was truly a good and welcoming person. From the moment I met Matt he was always kind hearted and friendly to me. It was like a slap on the cheek moment - like 'DUH why didn't we think of this before?'

Kayla was the girl name. We both liked it, it was not as common then and it fit the parameters I had set at the time which was all of the women born into our family for the most part have names that end in -a. Christina, Adriana, Sofia, Alexandra, Paula, etc... I wanted to keep that tradition alive. This time around I am like whatever name I like I will pick even it ends in an -e or an -n, you get the idea.

To add to the frustration last time, we did not find out the sex of the baby so we HAD to have two names picked out just in case. Talk about pressure! This time it will be made a bit easier but I am still very "nervous" about coming up with the "perfect" name. I feel like even thought it is common and an 11th hour pick, Matthew's name fits him. I have no regrets. I love it and he is a Matthew - he definitely would not have been an Ethan.

Last but not least (but a huge part of my neurosis), it has to go with our last name. Kevin feels it really needs to be two syllables to go with out last name. I disagree but perhaps he is right. WHO knows... Oy - any suggestions are welcome. I am sure six weeks, heck four days before this baby arrives we will likely still be going in circles about this... But the nursery will done... HA.

All suggestions welcome. Names (both sexes) you have heard recently, names you discarded, come one, come all and HELP HELP HELP!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Let's see...our boy name with Lily was Owen. We planned to use that with #2 but decided against it since it seems to be gaining in popularity much like Lily has. Good gosh, there are so many 2 year olds named Lily even though the name was below 50 on the top names list when we used it! We think Owen is headed down the same path. Still a nice name though.

We really struggled with boy names before coming up with Cameron. We actually settled on it after using It's a pretty neat tool where you select names you like and it shows you similar names.

Other boy names we considered are Jack, Henry (Hank!), Dexter.

Other boy names I like:
Simon, Ryan, Wesley (Wes), I know there are others but I'm drawing a blank.

Girl names we've considered/like:
Alison
Alice
Stella
Hazel
Ivy

We have the Baby Name Wizard book from when I was pregnant with Cameron. It gives 'sibling' names which is pretty cool. Names that 'match' or go well with each other. You can borrow it if you'd like!

Good luck!

Anonymous said...

OK...not sure what happened with my link but it was fine when I previewed! The site is Nymbler.

jennifer said...

Our girl name for Liam was Gabriella (fits with your A ending!!) and we would shorten it to Brie - not Gabby or Ella. Our traditional boy names were Andrew & Daniel but neither of us really like Andy or Danny. Of course Dave, Stefan, Carter, Boyd & Leroi are out ;) The best way we had about going through names was to mentally go through our favorite books & movies to gather our best choices! We joked to people that we would name our boy Hannibal Jesus since Silence of the Lambs is one of our favs but added Jesus to make him not so scary to others ;) I think it has a nice ring to it!

You can take Gabriella - we've already discussed that we cannot use Liam's girl name :)

Christina Schmidt said...

Melissa - I just bought that book (the Baby Name Wizard.) I love it! I will check out your site as well. That sounds super cool as well! Also, I love Stella but I can think of is that movie(?) where the guy screams Stellllllllla. I also like Hazel - that is pretty name and old fashioned but new sounding!

Jennifer: I love Gabriella! Hmmm :) Totally laughing about the DMB thing because honestly I was going through their names the other day and thinking hmm how would that sounds ;) I actually like the name Carter but we know someone in Canada with a boy that has that name and she is a good friend of K's mom so that would just be weird... Tee Hannibal Jesus... oh boy! That is kind of like Bull Schmidt.

I have been scouring books (authors and story characters I love) as well as the end of movies for names.

Anonymous said...
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jennifer said...

Stella & Grace are out for us because of Dave's twins! I love Grace as a middle name though so that's too bad :( And we don't allow ourselves to do repeats & considering the size of Matias' family, I'm surprised we have any options left! I also LOVE Joaquin for a boy...

Christina Schmidt said...

I have friend from SJA swimming who named her little boy Miles and I love that name but I feel I cannot use it. It is that whole I know someone who I keep in touch with peripherally/occasionally has used a name! It is like Kevin's old boss (who is also our current boss' sister) has a son named Benjamin and I love that name but it is out because of that. GAWD, freak show freak show!

Pickles and Dimes said...

I happen to love names that end in -a as well, but since my own name ends in -a, I might not go that avenue. In fact, we're kind of in trouble with the names we like: Sasha and Jensen (our names are Shauna and Jason). See how alliterative (and obnoxious) that would be? :)

My favorites for girls are Sasha and Johanna. And Isabella. It just rolls off the tongue.

Anonymous said...

If you're worried about name popularity, I have two sites for you:

Social Security Administration Baby Names Site

The Baby Name Voyager, which lets you type in a name and see how its popularity is going (Kayla peaked in 2003, for example)

I use these ALL THE TIME to see the trends. So if you like a name, you can see if it's on its way up, on its way down, or holding steady.

Anonymous said...

Hmm... I just stumbled upon your blog this morning and I'm going through the same naming freak-out so I don't know if it is a good thing or bad thing that I stumbled upon it. :) Also, we aren't finding out the sex of the baby before hand so I have 3 more months of freaking out to do.

For boys: I always thought if I had a boy I would name him Oscar but now I really like Fionn (pronounced Finn). We really like Irish names and were actually getting ready for a three week backpacking trip in Ireland when we found out we were pregnant (still went). Other names that are a little too weird but still cool are Atticus and Xavier - or Wulfic and Fawkes (which I've never met anyone with, they are from Harry Potter and have been vetoed). I've always liked the name Owen too but it is my maiden name and I still use it a lot so that is out. My sister named her son Thomas which is really cute and Henry is a great name.

I'm having a much harder time with girls. I LOVE the name Maude but it might be too fuddy-duddy once she gets older - especially if she is built like her father. We also love the name Fionnuala (Finn-oo-la) which we think is too Irish for N.A. although we would call her Fionn. Right now I'm leaning towards Moira but I also like Esme, Oona and Orla. My sister's name is Amanda which I find pretty and no one has ever called her Mandy.

Hope that helps at all - at least you know you aren't alone. :)

*melanie

Karen said...

Just found your blog today too. You commented on someone else's blog and I had to click over because I say "Welcome to my world" all the time. Great name! Then I had to comment because I am a freak baby namer too! If you want a good laugh, go check out this site...

Baby's Named a Bad, Bad Thing

My 1st daughter is Breanna, ends in an a.
My second was KellyAnn until 3 months before her birth then we switched to Brooke Marie. At school she goes by the double name, but at home she's usually just Brooke.
Our boy name both times was Kuper (pronounced like Cooper), it's my MIL's maiden name and there are no boys to carry on the last name so we thought we'd use is as a first. But nope, had 2 girls!
Have fun driving your hubby crazy with this!