Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Our rules for baby-naming


With Noah, naming was easy. At 9 weeks gestation, I said: "I like the name 'Noah' if it's a boy." and Josh said: "I like the name 'Sophie' if it's a girl." And that was that. Noah if it was a boy and Sophie it was a girl and we were both happy.
But we also learned some things.
Like, the name you love when naming your firstborn is likely a name that many love. In the case of Noah, it was 6th the year he was born, and has climbed even higher since. Fortunately, for us, he was a boy because if he'd been a Sophie - well, that was number one that year. And Sophie has the added complication of having many variations (Sofie, Sophia, Sofia) so Sophie when all those versions are added together is very very popular.
For baby #2 the only rule was - not in the top 100. We were pretty set on a boy name but the girl name was a struggle. And after suggesting 50+names (literally) and having Ren Man turn down every.single.suggestion, I jumped at Madeleine, with the nickname Del, because I could live with it. At that point, if he had suggested Butt Head, I probably would have said "YES!" - just so the poor thing had a name.

For this baby, we've articulated many more rules. There has also been the list of 50 (before we hammered out the "rules"), that were turned down. But I think this is it:

1. Can't be too popular (ideally not in the top 100 names)
2. Can't start or end like someone else's name in our immediate family
      ie. the name can't start with a J, S, N, or D (M is a maybe)
          the name can't end with the sound /a/ or /el/
3. The name also can't end in a long /e/ as this can sound cutesy

I think those are all the rules.
Now hit me with your baby names! Feel free to be unique, think outside the naming box. We like familiar words/names just not ones where the chance of them having a peer with the same name is very likely.
Ideas?!?!

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