Choosing the name for your firstborn child is perhaps one of the most challenging tasks you will ever face. There’s just so. much. dang. pressure. Our son will have this name FOREVER, unless he becomes super famous and turns into the next Bono or Eminem (my daily prayers will surely prevent this from happening).
Brett and I agreed on our girl name over the summer, before we were even trying to get pregnant. I had downloaded a baby name app on my phone just for fun and we were standing next to the kitchen sink (Brett doing dishes; me watching supportively) when I said it out loud. Brett looked at me with wide eyes and said, “I love that!” We smiled, agreed the name was perfect, and no further discussion was had.
Boy names, on the other hand, are a whole different ball game. We wanted something fairly unique, masculine but not too masculine, and a name that paired well with our girl name. Before our gender reveal, I remember telling Brett we had to decide the name because we already had one for a girl and it just wouldn’t be fair. I know that makes no sense, but pregnancy sense is its own sense so Brett just rolled with it.
We sat on the couch night after night reading baby name books, veto-ing fifteen names for every one name that we “kind of” liked. I attempted my best sports announcer impression and would say things like, “And now, starting point guard, number 21, _______ Gadd!!!!” Or…. “Touchdown!!! ________ Gadd has done it again!!!!!”
For some reason, this was the best way to contemplate hypothetical names for our son. If it didn’t sound good being announced in front of hundreds of screaming fans, then it wasn’t the right name.
After fake announcing close to fifty wrong ones, we FINALLY settled on our perfect boy name. I said it over and over again close to twenty times that night, just to be sure. Yep, it was the one.
And then of course two weeks later a Super Popular Blogger Who Shall Not Be Named announced the name of her son and WHAT DO YOU KNOW?! SHE STOLE OUR BABY NAME!! Okay, stealing is probably the wrong word. She doesn’t even know me, and I don’t even know her. But I was still slightly devastated because part of the reason I loved the name so much was that it was fairly unique and suddenly, it didn’t seem unique anymore. Brett and I didn’t even know anyone with this name, and now we did. Granted, it belonged to the child of a stranger off the internet, BUT STILL. It seemed less special, as dumb as that sounds.
After that, Brett and I had a good heart to heart and decided that we still loved the name just as much. We also decided that I was overreacting and overemotional and probably should not spend so much time on the internet just in case some C-list celebrity steals our name again.
All that being said—we do have a name. The perfect name. We talk to him all the time (he can hear us you know!) and I already do a pretty hilarious impression of him (“Mom! I want more cheetos! Do you want me to starve in here?!”). We decided to keep our name a secret until he’s born, mostly because when you tell people your baby name beforehand, they tend to think the topic is open for discussion. I’ve already received quite a bit of unsolicited pregnancy advice, and there was no way in heck I was going to listen to everyone’s opinions about names. Plus, it’s really fun not telling people.
So, sorry Mom. You’ll have to wait it out till May. And no, we’re not accepting bribes.
