Choosing Baby Names is not easy!

Choosing a name for the baby
When I was a child, I used to sit for hours dreaming up lists of names for my imaginary future children. I would carefully select names that sounded good – rolled off the tongue well and were suitably impressive for my children, who would clearly be wonderful! The names usually reflected the books I was reading at the time. I know at one stage my daughter was going to be Anastasia Nancy, based entirely on the books about Anastasia Krupnik by Lois Lowry and the Nancy Drew series by Laurie Lykken – gotta love those strong female protagonists (and alliterated authors’ names too, by the looks of things!).
I had always hated my full name, Susanna, although I like it now, and so it seemed like such a wonderful opportunity to be able to choose a name that you absolutely loved and give it to your child. My only worry was having too many names that I loved and ending up with dozens of middle names!
Now that I am in the position where I need to choose a name for my baby, I am finding it a lot more difficult. Actually, that’s an understatement – it’s a bloomin’ minefield! I suppose part of the problem is that it isn’t just my decision – unfortunately, I have to take into account M’s opinions too (!). There’s also the fact that in all my childish daydreaming, I never once imagined that I might have a boy, so it never occurred to me to think of any boys’ names that I liked.
Then add to that the problem of being a teacher and so EVERY name reminds me of a child I’ve taught, some of whom have put me off their particular names forever, and you can see why I’m finding this rather tough!
Being a teacher does make things really difficult. And that the fact that we are BOTH teachers makes it doubly challenging! One name that I love has been vetoed by M because he’s taught a rather wimpy boy with that name. I did try to point out that once it was our son’s name, he would no longer think about the wimpy boy, but he doesn’t like it, so it’s out. He likes really old-fashioned names and lots of them just make me think of old men, so they’re out too.
I think we have a middle name sorted. It’s not one that I love, but it’s my dad’s name, and M’s dad’s name, M’s middle name, and even M’s best friend’s name (who may well be a godparent) so it does seem fitting that we use that as a middle name. I feel that this is right, but also think it’s sad that this isn’t one of my favourites. I’m sure I’ll learn to love it.
But as for first names, who knows? I’ve always preferred slightly more traditional names for boys – I love some of the more imaginative girls’ names, but when it comes to boys, I definitely prefer more standard names. Having said that, I really don’t want to choose a name that everyone will have – I don’t want him to be one of four in his class at school with the same name. I want something that sounds good with the surname and that I like the abbreviations of; something that people will say ‘Oh that’s a lovely name’ without the raised eyebrows or double takes. It’s so hard!
Ideally, I want to go to the hospital with three potential names. I don’t want to name him now, as he might not suit that name when he’s born and I’ll always be wondering whether we should have chosen something else. But since we’re struggling to find one at the moment, three seems to be an almost impossible task.
Did anyone have the same problems? How did you choose your baby’s names?
I also write my own blog over at www.pitterpatter82.wordpress.com – I’d love it if you popped over there to say hello sometime.

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