For being at 34 weeks into this pregnancy, finding possible names has only recently come to the forefront of our activities.
First off, I should mention we are not finding out the sex of our child ahead of time, so that automatically means any list of names was immediately two lists – one for boys and one for girls.
People often thought we were nuts, or that I was lying when I’d tell them “nope, no names picked out yet.” It was often met with a look of disbelief or a raised eyebrow that I was being secretive. My own mother said to me once when I had no answer on names that “you guys are so secretive.”
People just have an incredibly hard time believing that we didn’t have our final names picked out within the first two months of pregnancy.
So, here we are. 34 weeks and only last week did we come up with roughly four possibilities for each – found through the use of exercises in “The Perfect Baby Name” by Jeanine Cox.
We never thought we would be “baby book” people and in the beginning scoffed at the idea, to be quite honest. “We can figure it out on our own,” we thought. “Who needs a book.”
We did.
Sure, we had no trouble naming our cats – Beardslee, Winston, Jasper – but they all have names that sound like British butlers. We soon found that trying to come up with names for a human being we have yet to meet is not so easy after all.
So we bought the book, we did the exercises, ranging from names of friends who’ve made a difference in your life, to family names, to names from your family ethnic backgrounds, we had pages and pages of names. Then, both mother and father are asked to go into separate rooms and jot down the ones they liked best from those lists. So, we did.
So, we have two lists of names we both had jotted down…but afterward we both agreed, none felt like “the one.” You know, that moment when an idea strikes you and you just know “this is it.”
That just wasn’t there.
This morning as we woke up, my wife said to me “what if we meet the baby and they don’t look anything like any of the names?” It’s a thought that has occurred to me time and time again. However, as is often the case, there’s things that I don’t verbalize (but probably should) until I realize she has the same fear.
I never thought the question “who are you” would carry so much weight to it.
The Dorky Daddy 