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Friday, June 11, 2010

What's in a name?

As we come closer to D day, I have been contemplating our name choices for this baby. Lydia is still adamant that the baby is a girl. The rest of us aren't so sure. Every time I have dreamt about this baby, it has been a boy. Some of those dreams didn't end happily, so I'm trying not to put too much stock in them.

How do you pick names for your children? How did you get YOUR name? I am named after someone that my mom knew and admired in high school. My name is frequently misspelled and/or mispronounced. Those are my starting points: a name with some significance, and a name that substitute teachers don't demolish the first time they see it on a class list.

I also have the baggage of knowing too much about name origins or meanings in other languages. I used to like the name 'Brady' until I took medical terminology and learned that is means "slow." I like the name 'Cameron' but after learning Spanish where 'camaron' means 'shrimp' and being short, I had to cross that off my list.

We plan to continue the use of family names with this child as we have with our girls. They are all named (first, middle, or both) after family members- some more recently alive than others. Both of my grandfathers and their fathers were named 'Frank Henry ___.' While I would like to honor their memories, Frank just doesn't sound like a baby to me. (Ironically, two of those men were born in Canada, one in England, one in Salt Lake. Who knew it was such a popular name combination.) My grandmothers were Edith and Elsie, not my first choices either. Love you, grandmas! With names like Serilda & Dahlia on Tim's side, we're running low on choices there too.

Another obstacle we have is that Tim is from a small town. What's that go to do with anything? In a place where you know every one your age in half the county, you come to know too much about those same people. Any boy name we have ever discussed has been shot down because "So and so was like this" or "So and so did that." I'm convinced we have three daughters because we could never agree on a boy name. Our son Lydia would have been traumatized for life!

So, pending the arrival of baby 4, we are again pondering names. I thought I had decided on a few that I liked, but now I'm wavering in my commitment to them. When Lydia was born, she didn't have a name for three or four days. Luckily, I was in the hospital for a week, so there was plenty of time to think about it. Tim left the first name up to me, since we already agreed on her middle name. Looking back, I don't know that a person on narcotics and recovering from serious blood loss should be allowed to make such a life-altering choice for a helpless child. I might have named her after Nurse Brunhilda. Ever time Tim or my mom called to check on us, the baby had a different name. She was Lucy, Madison, Annie, and some others I don't recall. Eventually, I had narrowed it down to two names. When the photographer came to take her picture and told me she needed to write the name down, I told her my options and SHE made the final decision for me. Luckily, it turned out OK.

I now know why people are starting to sell naming rights like their kids are a sports arena. Names are a big responsibility and kids are expensive. Maybe I could cut a deal with Diet Coke...

Perhaps it's time for a contest. What would you name this child? Boy & girl options, please. (Despite what critics say, we honestly don't know the gender of this child.) Maybe the winner could get a cool prize, like a week with my other kids.

Let's hear your suggestions and maybe I'll even create a fancy schmancy poll for the sidebar one of these days.

13 comments:

Hillary said...

I like Crash for a boy, Aubrey would be happy! I love the name Cameron too but we also kinda discounted it because of it's meaning. Here are my choices, although I don't know if they really meet your criteria of being a family name:

Boy: Spencer-I LOVE this name for a boy. Jason would probably have been Spencer if Doug and Cath hadn't used it just a few months earlier, not that they would have cared (you could use Timothy as a middle name to make it a family name)

Girl: Elizabeth (you could call her eliza or Lizzy-we have friends with a little girl they call Lizzy and it is so cute for a little girl toddling around, I love it!)
Or you could name her Emma Louise and have your own Emma Lou-that's a true family name, right?!

Those are my suggestions for now, I'm sure I can come up with a few more after I think about it a bit.

Unknown said...

I should have listed my ideas, too. For a girl, her name would probably be Elize, since my middle name is Elizabeth & 'Elizabeth Prestwich' is really long. For a boy we are thinking William. William Prestwich was Tim's 3rd great grandpa who joined the church in England & homesteaded the farm in Moroni.

Yesterday I was thinking about the name Charlotte out of no where, so who knows how many changes will happen in the next 7 weeks. I change my mind 10 times an hour...

Unknown said...

I meant Eliza- didn't proof read.

Hillary said...

I knew Eliza was a good idea. I was actually also going to suggest the name William because I love the name Will for a little boy.

Meggan Hansen said...

I don't have any suggestions, I just wanted to comment on your post. I can't even decide my own kid's names :) Jeff thinks that's his job. I love that the photographer had the final say on Lydia's name. That's funny. Jeff is the same way on names too. Coming from a small town he knows people named whatever and it's therefore banned. Good luck. I do think Eliza is cute. Oh and btw I like the new format on your blog. Looks great.

JOSH AND ANGELA said...

I love the name Eliza... so cute!

Our Liam actually started out as a William (so, yes, I like that name too)... We changed it to Liam because although I love the concept of "Will" I could not live with a "Bill" or "Willy" or "Billy" so we suck with the Irish version of the name William.

Anonymous said...

Kealan's name means slim in some of the baby books. He is slim. I like lilly, liza, you could go with elizabeth and call her liza. I have a hard time with boys name and I hate them all right after I start liking them so no help there!

JamesVal said...

Hi my friend, how are you?? I've been thinking about you. I hope you know you are awesome and you are and will be a great mom no matter the sex of this baby.
Our little girl has my great-grandma's name, but we decided to give her that name because it means "Victory" and right after she was born and learned of her health issues, no other name fitted her.
I like Elizabeth, Taylor and Rylie for a girl. I like Andrew, Mark, James, Luke and Matthew for a boy.
Love,
Val

The Van Horn's said...

When I was pregnant with Elliot, I read the baby name book, cover to cover. We didn't know if a boy or a girl was on the way, but I really only concentrated on girl names because Guy always wanted to name his first boy after his grandfather, Guy Elliot. So, I didn't get much say in the matter. I tried for Elliot William (so he would be named after 2 grandfathers) but it was a no go. Good luck. When I was pregnant with Amelia, all I had picked out was a boy name and then we were surprised with a girl, so she didn't have a name until right before we left the hospital. Ashley has Rae as a middle name which is after Guy's grandmother and mother. I love the idea of family names, even if you have to go back a few generations.

Anonymous said...

I like Carson for a boy. Here's a suggestion. Go into someone Else's friend list and start looking at all the names. Not your own list cause you obviously know all those people and already have judgments about them - good or bad. Good luck. I'm excited for you guys!!! can't believe you're having #4.

Lisa Gibson said...

You mentioned that you don't want substitute teachers to demolish a name, can I recommend names that are gender specific? I know that is getting hard these days but when you have 3 Taylor's in one class, they all spell it differently and two are boys and one is a girl, it makes life interesting.

For names in our family we do family names. Elizabeth Sidney has gone back 200 years. At one point it was Rachel Sidney. That takes care of 3/5 in ours ;)

Henry was named after Professor Henry Eyering who was a big inspiration in Mike's life. Elliot is Mike's middle name.

I always remember the story of one of the prophets, which one I don't remember. He was named after his grandpa, I think. One night he had a dream that his grandpa came to him and asked him what he was doing with their name. So I like the thought of giving your children a story to tell about who they are named after and someone to aspire to be like.

I like the name Peter and Mike doesn't. The only other girl name I ever wanted was Keira. But no one would ever be able to spell it right. I also like somewhat uncommon names, I always hated being one of 5 Elizabeth's or 5 Lisa's. I couldn't win either way. OH! As for liking some nick names and not others, my parent's picked my nickname so that people wouldn't call me Liz, they said I just wasn't a "Liz." That turned out to be a really good thing as that is my sister-in-law!

Anonymous said...

I am so glad I'm not trying to decide on a baby name for my own right now. I don't know how I did it with my two. I just re-read that, and it almost sounded like an announcement. It's not!

I've been struggling with naming my characters in my book. It's almost as hard as naming my kids!

Tara said...

I refuse to share my choices because then you'll use them. They're GOOD though. I'm saving them in case I get to have more - one boy, one girl.

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