Baby names...keep it a secret?

[Blenheim]

I was Rufus/Rufusetta in the womb, because my grandmother was being a busy body and my parents were getting sick of it. We did tell people last time that our lead boy name was from Harry Potter, and that we could neither confirm nor deny that it was Xenophilius. But if pressed we would say George.

Dreamer - I've figured out that regardless of what you choose, there will be people who do not like it. If we all shared the same taste in everything in the world, then it would be a pretty boring place. I know that there are people who think that our names are old people names or boring, and I'm fine with that. But I do take criticism more seriously if it's from someone whose taste in names I generally share, or if it's a comment about how Frederick will inevitably become Fred at some point, and do I like Fred? (Answer: No. Off the list.)

 

[Dreamer_D]

I was Rufus/Rufusetta in the womb, because my grandmother was being a busy body and my parents were getting sick of it. We did tell people last time that our lead boy name was from Harry Potter, and that we could neither confirm nor deny that it was Xenophilius. But if pressed we would say George.

Dreamer - I've figured out that regardless of what you choose, there will be people who do not like it. If we all shared the same taste in everything in the world, then it would be a pretty boring place. I know that there are people who think that our names are old people names or boring, and I'm fine with that. But I do take criticism more seriously if it's from someone whose taste in names I generally share, or if it's a comment about how Frederick will inevitably become Fred at some point, and do I like Fred? (Answer: No. Off the list.)

Oh girl, I know you can't please em all. But if my mom is like "I hate it!"... well that is hard to ignore. I would rather not invite the commentary I guess. Or if people say it makes them think of a sausage, which was the case with one of the names we were thinking of. And maybe another now that I think of it! OFF the list it goes!

 

[Pandora II]

I do think it's okay to raise things with people that might impact on their name choice.

For example, my American SIL who lives in London is currently pregnant and having a girl. She asked me what I thought about Madeleine as a name - I said I loved it, but that everyone will call her Maddy and also think of Madeleine McCann which might be something to consider.

I remember there was someone on here whose friend was thinking of calling her daughter 'Burke' - in the UK, a burke is someone who does stupid things as in 'you complete burke'...

 

[Lanie]

Burke -- I remember you saying this awhile back Pandora. Which is funny bc it's a pretty trendy name here.

We kept ours a secret and I'm so glad we did. Comments from the peanut gallery came from all angles, and everyone has an opinion on something when you are pregnant. You could name your son something seemingly normal and uncritizable like Matthew, and someone will find something wrong with it. We'll keep our next one's a secret as well.

 

[DivaDiamond007]

We kept our names secret for both kids (a boy and a girl). We didn't want to listen to comments from everyone and their brother about what we wanted to name OUR kids. We also wanted to wait until we met the baby before we actually chose a name.

 

[butterfly 17]

We had our son's name picked out 10 years ago, lol! Every time I got pregnant, I had a definite boy's name, Michael, but not a definite girl's name. If people asked me, I would just tell them, if it's a boy, it's Michael, if it's a girl, I am not sure yet.
I had a little harder time picking out his middle name, but in the end we chose to name him after my husband's Cambodian name.

I had no problem telling people since it is a very common name and I don't own the rights to the name, although no one in my family or my husband's family has the name Michael, or John for that matter, but this year we had another boy in our family (my cousin delivered in January and I delivered in Feb. ) and I asked them what name they picked and they would not tell me.

I was a little worried they had the same name, but even if they did, it really shouldn't of mattered to me, I would still have named my son the same name.

The only negative comment I had was from a co-worker who told me she doesn't like the name Michael because she knew a MIchael who was stuck up and if I named my son Michael he would be stuck up too. She named her son Khalijah , so of course I told her I didn't like that name because I couldn't pronounce it or spell it........ Just kidding, I would never do that!

 

[Haven]

I do think it's okay to raise things with people that might impact on their name choice.

For example, my American SIL who lives in London is currently pregnant and having a girl. She asked me what I thought about Madeleine as a name - I said I loved it, but that everyone will call her Maddy and also think of Madeleine McCann which might be something to consider.

I remember there was someone on here whose friend was thinking of calling her daughter 'Burke' - in the UK, a burke is someone who does stupid things as in 'you complete burke'...

I agree that you should definitely make people aware of possible negatives about their names of choice *if* they're sharing them and asking for feedback.

My name is Lori, and when I spent the summer in London during undergrad several people giggled upon meeting me. It took me a while to figure out what a "lorry" was. I don't think that would have been reason enough to deter my parents from naming me Lori, but it was interesting to learn that my name meant "truck" across the pond.

We don't have kids yet, but I know I'm going to want to think of every possible nickname for our names of choice so I can see whether I'll really dislike something that my child might become known as over time.

I think it's best to keep names to yourself while pregnant though, to be honest. Everyone has an opinion before the baby is born, but it's much harder to say "OH! You just gave birth and named your child Puck? That's really a horrible idea."

 

[Bella_mezzo]

We thought about it keeping it a secret, but are putting it out there now...

We are adopting a 2 year old boy from Ethiopia who will hopefully join our family this summer.

We are naming him Samuel for his American first name but also keeping his Ethiopian names. He'll have several nicknames, including Sam I am sure, and DH's 11 year old niece is determined to call him "JuJu" for some unfathonable reason

We had 3 different boy name combos picked out (each of which we still love and each of which include our fathers' or my husband's names in some way) but none of them worked with our soon-to-be son's Ethiopian names, plus DH and I both had dreams that his name was Samuel and the Biblical story of Hannah's long struggle with infertility and eventual blessing of Samuel as her beloved son and only child, was a perennial source of comfort to me during our unsuccessful year and a half of TTC...so, we chucked all our dedication to using family names and the names we had obsessively honed, and can not wait to meet Samuel (We'll still call him "B" on PS pretty much all the time and his nicknames and how much we use his American or Ethiopian names certainly won't be clear until we meet and get to know him).

Our top girl name is Naima Grace (nickname Nia), followed closely by Eleanor True (nickname Elle); however, as demonstrated above, who knows what we would actually name a daughter

My brother and his wife are expecting next month, they aren't finding out the gender. They shared their short list of girl and boy names but aren't sharing their top picks...so, lots of exciting suprises from them

 

[Lanie]

We thought about it keeping it a secret, but are putting it out there now...

We are adopting a 2 year old boy from Ethiopia who will hopefully join our family this summer.

We are naming him Samuel for his American first name but also keeping his Ethiopian names. He'll have several nicknames, including Sam I am sure, and DH's 11 year old niece is determined to call him "JuJu" for some unfathonable reason

We had 3 different boy name combos picked out (each of which we still love and each of which include our fathers' or my husband's names in some way) but none of them worked with our soon-to-be son's Ethiopian names, plus DH and I both had dreams that his name was Samuel and the Biblical story of Hannah's long struggle with infertility and eventual blessing of Samuel as her beloved son and only child, was a perennial source of comfort to me during our unsuccessful year and a half of TTC...so, we chucked all our dedication to using family names and the names we had obsessively honed, and can not wait to meet Samuel (We'll still call him "B" on PS pretty much all the time and his nicknames and how much we use his American or Ethiopian names certainly won't be clear until we meet and get to know him).

Our top girl name is Naima Grace (nickname Nia), followed closely by Eleanor True (nickname Elle); however, as demonstrated above, who knows what we would actually name a daughter

My brother and his wife are expecting next month, they aren't finding out the gender. They shared their short list of girl and boy names but aren't sharing their top picks...so, lots of exciting suprises from them

I was just going to mention this story to you if you weren't already familiar with it! My friend who struggled with infertility for 11 years finally conceived a son and he's turning one year this Friday. Named him Sam. Still brings me chills!

 

[charbie]

I firmly learned my lesson this weekend that we will NOT be sharing the name of our LO until birth.
I've told people we don't know what we will chose for a little girl should we have 1...I have 2 favorites picked out and could quite possibly wait until we meet her before picking out one of the names.
DH and I have struggled to find a boy name we both like. He is adamant about wanting a name that begins with W, bc our last name starts with W and likes the sound of the two W together (not sure why....but ill go with it.) So anyways, this weekend his grandmother, whom I love dearly, asked if we picked any names. I told her we think we would go with Wesley for a boy and call him Wes. She goes, 'Wesley? Yuck. Surely we can come up with a better name than that!' And i about wanted to die. Wes is the one and only name we both really like. I told DH we will not be sharing anymore names thankyouverymuch. Being the amazing person my husband is, he said, 'who cares! My grandma told me for years to cut my hair and shave...if I listened to her, I never would have met you!" (True story...I introduced myself to him at the bar we met at bc I liked his long hair.) So while I guess it really wont matter since we will go with the name we like best and screw everyone else. But it still irked me that she had to say that....

 

[ImperfectGirl]

We thought about it keeping it a secret, but are putting it out there now...

We are adopting a 2 year old boy from Ethiopia who will hopefully join our family this summer.

We are naming him Samuel for his American first name but also keeping his Ethiopian names. He'll have several nicknames, including Sam I am sure, and DH's 11 year old niece is determined to call him "JuJu" for some unfathonable reason

We had 3 different boy name combos picked out (each of which we still love and each of which include our fathers' or my husband's names in some way) but none of them worked with our soon-to-be son's Ethiopian names, plus DH and I both had dreams that his name was Samuel and the Biblical story of Hannah's long struggle with infertility and eventual blessing of Samuel as her beloved son and only child, was a perennial source of comfort to me during our unsuccessful year and a half of TTC...so, we chucked all our dedication to using family names and the names we had obsessively honed, and can not wait to meet Samuel (We'll still call him "B" on PS pretty much all the time and his nicknames and how much we use his American or Ethiopian names certainly won't be clear until we meet and get to know him).

Our top girl name is Naima Grace (nickname Nia), followed closely by Eleanor True (nickname Elle); however, as demonstrated above, who knows what we would actually name a daughter

My brother and his wife are expecting next month, they aren't finding out the gender. They shared their short list of girl and boy names but aren't sharing their top picks...so, lots of exciting suprises from them

We considered the name Samuel for the exact same reason! In the end, we didn't choose it, but I just ordered a decal from Etsy that will go above his window of the scripure from 1 Samuel 1:27: For this child I prayed and the Lord answered my prayer. Hannah's story was definitely comforting to us as well

Sorry for the threadjack!

 

[packrat]

Ppppbbbtttt a big raspberry to Grandma, Charbs. I like Wesley-it reminds me of Will Wheaton on Star Trek TNG and I had a huge crush on him, and Westley was Princess Buttercup's love in The Princess Bride, the movie to end all movies, and that's kind of a close name there.

A lot of it I think depends on who you tell, you know? My Grandma Joyce, I could've told her I was naming Trapper..I don't know, Vlad (not that there's anything *wrong* with Vlad, if there's any reading or considering it), and she would have found something about it to say that was nice. One of my other Gramma's..no. I don't remember Gramma w/the Kitties exact wording about London but it was not nice at all. She's also the one who poo pooed mom's top choice for my brother, Traskin, which I always thought was so cool. "Trashcan? I'm not having a grandson named Trashcan, pick a different name"

I love when I ask someone what names they have picked out or are tossing around and they want to chat about it..doesn't happen much anymore, seems like, I suppose b/c there's too many insensitive people who screw up the fun for the rest of us!

 

[charbie]

Ppppbbbtttt a big raspberry to Grandma, Charbs. I like Wesley-it reminds me of Will Wheaton on Star Trek TNG and I had a huge crush on him, and Westley was Princess Buttercup's love in The Princess Bride, the movie to end all movies, and that's kind of a close name there.

A lot of it I think depends on who you tell, you know? My Grandma Joyce, I could've told her I was naming Trapper..I don't know, Vlad (not that there's anything *wrong* with Vlad, if there's any reading or considering it), and she would have found something about it to say that was nice. One of my other Gramma's..no. I don't remember Gramma w/the Kitties exact wording about London but it was not nice at all. She's also the one who poo pooed mom's top choice for my brother, Traskin, which I always thought was so cool. "Trashcan? I'm not having a grandson named Trashcan, pick a different name"

I love when I ask someone what names they have picked out or are tossing around and they want to chat about it..doesn't happen much anymore, seems like, I suppose b/c there's too many insensitive people who screw up the fun for the rest of us!

Haha- i hadn't thought of their being a big difference between "Wesley" and "Westley"- we hadn't decided which it would be! I'm a big fan of The Princess Bride...I LOVE the book

And Bella- I LOVE the name Samuel for a little boy. And the meaning behind the name makes it that much cooler. He's such a lucky little boy

 

[Gempassion]

I'm not pregnant and I don't have children. I have a girl name picked out and I am certain that it is the type of name that everyone will have an opinion about. Thank you for sharing your concerns about discussing baby names with family and friends. After reading this thread, I will certainly keep the name to myself.

 

[beesha77]

With my first we told, but with the second we didn't. We actually weren't going to find out the sex with the second but since it was twins we felt we had to! So we kept the names a secret. It was so fun but boy were people so annoyed!

 

[Sha]

I shared our top name with my friends and family, but no one really liked it. They all told me how everyone would be mispronouncing her name all the time. It made me feel a bit discouraged, and one point I considered using a different name. At the end of the pregnancy, though, that was still the name I loved the most, and DH liked it too - so we decided to forget everybody else''s opinions and just go with it, and I'm glad we did. I think it's a beautiful name. There were a few mispronunciations in the beginning, but now everybody pronounces it perfectly - even the children at daycare!

 

[Bella_mezzo]

Sha-I love D's name

Also, my bro and SIL shared their top names yesterday (they are due in 2 weeks !!!)

Victoria Adelaide if a girl and Noah Richard or John Richard if a boy...I like them alot!!! They were considering some names I wasn't so fond of, but I never would have told them that I just would have loved my neice or nephew and maybe come-up with a special nickname that just I would call them, but mostly I would respect the name they chose even if I didn't like it...but...I think these are great names