Today I'm officially at 22 weeks. The baby is the size of either a spaghetti squash or a papaya, depending on what website you read. I really like spaghetti squash so that's what I'm saying. She is moving like crazy too, which is fun to feel.
I am now being asked daily if we have a name picked. We definitely have some ideas. Some that we really like, in fact, but with about half of the pregnancy to go I don't feel like I'm ready to discuss it with people.
Here's the thing. I'm a namer. I like to name things. I named every one of my Barbie dolls growing up. I name goldfish. I pride myself on being able to come up with names that are clever and have meaning. I'm fascinated by how names change in popularity (games like this on Sporcle.com are among my favorite time wasters). All of this puts a lot of pressure on me with a name for an actual human being.
We are lucky that we have a last name that is pretty user-friendly, name wise. There are lots of names that sound good with it. But that almost makes choosing a name harder.
The older I get, I also run into the problem of knowing an awful lot of people, so names that I may have once loved now have a negative connotation. We also know a lot of people with young kids, so are watching closely to make sure we don't duplicate any of their names. I don't want any names that are on the most popular names list, but I don't want to make something up, either. I am also concerned with names that "match" each other - we are choosing not just a name but a genre of names that future siblings will need to fit into. If we pick a more old-fashioned name, we should really stick with that for the future. You can't have a kid named Jordana and a kid named Mary (neither of those names are on the list, by the way).
I also don't want to decide, tell people, and have them say "really?" So I figure that if Shaun & I keep it to ourselves, we will be getting less commentary from people, and they'll just deal with it when she arrives. But because we are getting asked the question so often, I'm tempted to just tell everyone that we're naming her Maleficent and watch them try not to make the "really?" face.
I am now being asked daily if we have a name picked. We definitely have some ideas. Some that we really like, in fact, but with about half of the pregnancy to go I don't feel like I'm ready to discuss it with people.
Here's the thing. I'm a namer. I like to name things. I named every one of my Barbie dolls growing up. I name goldfish. I pride myself on being able to come up with names that are clever and have meaning. I'm fascinated by how names change in popularity (games like this on Sporcle.com are among my favorite time wasters). All of this puts a lot of pressure on me with a name for an actual human being.
We are lucky that we have a last name that is pretty user-friendly, name wise. There are lots of names that sound good with it. But that almost makes choosing a name harder.
The older I get, I also run into the problem of knowing an awful lot of people, so names that I may have once loved now have a negative connotation. We also know a lot of people with young kids, so are watching closely to make sure we don't duplicate any of their names. I don't want any names that are on the most popular names list, but I don't want to make something up, either. I am also concerned with names that "match" each other - we are choosing not just a name but a genre of names that future siblings will need to fit into. If we pick a more old-fashioned name, we should really stick with that for the future. You can't have a kid named Jordana and a kid named Mary (neither of those names are on the list, by the way).
I also don't want to decide, tell people, and have them say "really?" So I figure that if Shaun & I keep it to ourselves, we will be getting less commentary from people, and they'll just deal with it when she arrives. But because we are getting asked the question so often, I'm tempted to just tell everyone that we're naming her Maleficent and watch them try not to make the "really?" face.
