Blog Widget by LinkWithin

Monday, October 25, 2010

Picking a Baby Name, both for real and online

Picking your baby's name is one of the hardest part of pregnancy, or was for me anyway*. You want to find the perfect baby name, one that one get her teased, that won't be #1 on the baby name charts, that won't relegate her to a lifetime of Bella H, that won't immediately link her to the year she was born (Hi, Lisa!). If you're like me you pored over the baby name books, double checking the meanings and then checking the Social Security Administration charts to see where it ranked this decade or last decade. You choose the perfect spelling (please just use the "normal" one, will ya?) I used this website a lot, it was by far my favorite online resource.

We really struggled with naming both the boys. The Pirate was our first and we were unprepared for the pressure of choosing the right baby name for him. We had a name in mind for much of the pregnancy, but even as I was in labor we were reading baby name books. We narrowed it down to two and a few hours after his birth decided on one. The Bug was 4 weeks early and while we knew he would have his grandfather's name. we didn't have a clue what name we'd actually call him. We finally named him mere hours before his release- and it turned out that we named him a very popular name for his year (in the top 20, top 10 the year after his birth!)  We did not have internet access at the hospital.  I still love it, and it fits him perfectly.

Girl names were more fun for me. My family had a tendency to give girls the L sound in their names so I kept looking for a good L name. Fairly early on I realized we could name her a name with the nickname "Ellie" that would fit the bill. I fell in love with both Eleanor Frances and Ellis Katherine.  I was 99% sure she was one of those. The weekend before her birth Mike asked, "How do you feel about...?" and I liked it, but not more than the other two. The baby was born on Tuesday and what do you know, we named her the new suggestion. For the record, it even starts with an L! I'm a bit worried that it dates to the 80s and 90s, but it is still in the top 50 last year. It is, however, more of a classic name (think Mary or Caroline) than a trendy one (MaKayla or Bella.)

While I don't post my kids names on my blog, it's no secret what they are. If you google me even a tiny bit you'll find them. I don't go to extremes to keep them private and fairly openly refer to them by name in email. I considered actually calling the girl by her name on the blog, but to keep things uniform, I'll be choosing a blog name for her. I haven't done so yet, because nothing really strikes me. She'll be 8 weeks old tomorrow and it's about time I decided on something before she becomes "baby girl" by default. The Pirate wants me to call her The Princess (he really loves his sister, can you tell?) but it seems like such an easy answer. I considered calling her The Pea, from The Princess and the Pea. I'm still undecided, so I'm taking suggestions. What should we call our baby girl? It doesn't have to follow the pattern of "The ____" but it needs to be cute. If I get more than one suggestion, I'm make up a poll of my favorites.  I'll start. I suggest we call her The Princess.

*Yes, there are some people, usually girls, who choose names in 8th grade and never waver. This boggles my mind.

I am an Amazon Associate. As such, any purchase you make at Amazon.com after following a link from this blog will earn me a (tiny) percentage back as income. Thanks. All content copy write Books. Lists. Life. at http://bookslistslife.blogspot.com. If you're reading this post anywhere other than there, you are reading stolen content.

11 comments:

  1. We had our son's name picked out when we were first married, and he wasn't born for 8 years. Of course, both of his names are family names. We had planned to call him Van, but after we saw him, it didn't fit, so we call him Vance. He has always liked his name, so I feel like we did pretty good. We never did settle on a girl's name we liked.

    I was thinking The Princess before I saw it was The Pirate's suggestion. You could call her Little Miss.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Eleanor was the second choice for our daughter-still love it but she fits her name. I love how you have set names you use for them. I've called mine a variety. I think she could be The Tulip-

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sweet Pea!!!!

    I know it doesn't have the 'The' but she's 'The' girl, she can be different. ;)

    I like The Princess, too.

    I should come up with blog names for my girls, too. I love when people do that. I keep referring to the tween and the teen or the eldest or the youngest... but soon they'll both be teens and then what? Youngest teen and eldest teen? Ugh. LOL!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Picking names is hard. Our #1 requirement was that their names were real names that they could proudly wear into adulthood. Being a "Lori" which is a nickname and not a real name spurned that on. (My husband has a real, adult name.) We also included a caveat that we had to like the nickname, and make sure everyone used the accepted nickname, if that make sense.

    Without giving out my (adult) children's real names, let's use the name Elizabeth. It meets the real name requirement. Then for a nickname we would have had to decide what we liked, Beth? Liz? Liza? And make sure everyone used that nickname. (Middle names are family names.)

    I like the "Sweet Pea" suggestion!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Any of the names mentioned are great for your precious baby girl. I think I like Little Miss or Sweet Pea best, though. I'll add one - Button or The Button for Cute as a Button. :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. I start thinking about baby names before conception - it truly is one of my favorite parts of being pregnant! My husband, on the other hand, refuses to even think about names until waaay late in the pregnancy, and won't commit to one until the birth (but will reject a lot of choices). This time, our toddler has taken to referring to the baby by our top choice name for months now, though, so I think it would be pretty hard to back out of. Oh, and we are SO with you on using the standard spellings.

    ReplyDelete
  7. PS A friend suggested Book Worm for our little one's blog name, which might work, but I feel like I have to wait for her personality to come out a little. What if (gasp) she hates books?

    ReplyDelete
  8. I've wondered why people don't use their children's names online. And I'm definitely one who has had girls names picked out for years. To me it seems non-negotiable, but I don't think Scott approves of either choice. Anything's better than his idea of a name--billy bob. It's become a big joke and that's actually what we call baby for time being.

    I like Bermuda's suggestion of Little Miss. Or Sweet Pea. We call Emma Pea Pod.

    ReplyDelete
  9. How 'bout Little Owl. LOL. She's always up, right? When I see her I see perky, and a Little Bit of Trouble. How bout Little Bit?

    We have so many names for The Girl.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I love The Princess! I call my daughter "Princess" all of the time--baby sisters are just bound to me princesses!

    ReplyDelete
  11. What a cutie pie! Princess goes well with Pirate and Bug.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for visiting, please leave a comment! Whenever possible I reply to comments via email, so please leave an email address if you want a direct reply. Anonymous users, I'm sorry, but until you stop leaving spam, you can't comment.

  © Blogger templates Psi by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP