The wife and I have been fighting about names.
She saw an episode of Scrubs, where one of the surgeons and his wife, who is also a nurse, are pregnant. The couple talk about names and she agrees to tell him the name she likes only if he promises not to tell anyone. Of course he tells the other guy (JD) and he then goes on to name some hamster that name, thereby making it unuseable for their child.
I am sure the wife thinks I will do the same. Everyone has been bugging the wife to divulge her list of favorite names but she has refused to break, even to me. Anyone who knows the wife, knows that the more you ask her, the more stubborn she gets. I was able to get her to agree to give me her ideas if I shared mine.
This did not last for very long. As soon as I made a few suggestions, she quickly shot them down with statements such as, "No", "Absolutely not", "That's dumb", you get the picture. Now, I fully admit that some of mine were a bit silly, as when I thought the twins might be a boy and girl and suggested they be called Luke and Leia. (My mother thought this was a great idea. I had to explain the part about it being from a movie).
So I finally got fed up with my suggestions being treated so poorly, and said, "Fine. Tell me some of yours then." She refused.
What's up with that? I give my suggestions in (mostly) good faith and get nothing in return.
I know from experience that the wife will not give in, so I have refused to give any further suggestions until she makes one. She can hold out longer than I (this has been proved in other areas of our relationship) however, there are principles at stake.
Unfortunately, I have no other suggestions.
Therefore, I open the comments of this post for name suggestions.
A few points. We know the twins are identical, but do not know the sex, so male and female suggestions are appreiciated. However, no rhyming names, no names with the same initial or sound too much alike, and no unisex names (I hate that).
If I get some good suggestions, I may put up a poll.
Make a suggestion. Maybe you can claim you named my kids.
9 comments:
One thing I'd recommend is checking name popularity trends (there are a few sites with this data). I think the last thing you want is to pick a name that turns out to be trendy (popular for a short time, then disappears). These trends come in spurts, and end up closely linking your child to a particular time period.
From what I recall, the data reveals interesting things, like the short term popularity of the name Caitlin, as well as the short-lived spike in names like Madison and Jordan for girls. It also shows how popularity for a name is changing over time. If a particular name has become more popular every year for the last 3 or 4 years, that's something to pay attention to. Choosing such a name makes it much more likely that your kids will have classmates with the same name, and it may be more susceptible to falling out of favour because it loses its distinctiveness.
Good luck!
The husband has a big mouth. I have a short list of names I like, which I will withold until the time is right (like, close to the actual birth). I am having some difficulty with pairing names and various combinations, so just keep adding to my list. He has come up with some good suggestions, he is only telling you about the dumb ones that are shot down. To be fair, the vast majority on my list are for girls, I have told him he can name any sons. This made him sulk more than I thought. Also, the names are ours to choose, I have not been in the mood to listen to month after month of people offering their unwanted opinion on the names we are choosing (spellings they prefer, middle names they insist on, someone else they know but we don't named a kid the same thing so we can't etc etc). I am looking forward to just announcing the birth along with the names, case closed. I expect to hear a lot of "that's lovely" and nothing else. Call it the LWG's perogative. Next fight will be about religion, so stay tuned - LWG
Karris (pronounced Care-is), Lauren, Sharon (my name :p), Jade, Kiersten, Brynn, Leigh, Claire, Hallie, Thea (pronounced tay-a), Abigal, Savannah, Caroline, Charlotte, Jillian, Chloe, Grace, Emily, Audrey,
Boys: Mitchell, Adam, Riley, Liam, Nathan, Gordon, Trent, Rowan, Colin, William, Anthony, Robert, Logan, Mark, Mason, Tristan,
These are names I would pick out, but that's me, not you and your wife, just thought I would throw in my two cents.
Don't forget to make sure the initials don't end up something dumb: IE:
Fiona Ingrid Berridge = F.I.B
Good Luck!
I cannot find your email, so I am making this post instead.
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I have included your website in our library directory for Blogs – North America – Canada/Quebec – Canada .....located at.... http://www.bookyards.com/search_results.html?type=blogs&category_id=661&page=4
If you can put a reciprocal link to our site, it will be appreciated.
Thanking you in advance,
Victor Lamp
For additional information on Bookyards,
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As for names....just leave the decision to the wife....but give helpful hints along the way....at least that worked in my situation.
My husband and I decided that we would keep our baby name choices a secret as well, but when people asked what the might be we had some completely ridiculous names. We also acted like this was the complete and utter truth...our girl names were: Henrietta, Rockwella or Awesomelope. For boys we said Jorge (we could not be considered Spanish in any sense of the word), Antwerp or Rutthington...oh the looks we got but that stopped the asking..
But seriously, I'm sure your wife has beautiful names chosen for your babes and it'll be such a wonderful surprise to know their names eh?
All the best
Laura
p.s just found the link to your blog from babes in blogland
Chapter 6, Freakonomics!
Dear Laura : we had tried that but unfortunately I cannot keep a straight face when telling relatives we are leaning towards Floyd or Velma, although Saskatoon has a nice ring to it. The worst is when people (relatives especially) throw their unsolicited two cents in but have completely awful suggestions and we have to be gracious and not say "ugh" out loud. I had thought keeping our suggestions to ourselves meant we would have the space and time to come to our own decision, but I was wrong. For some reason people think that having a list of names we intend to choose from, or wanting to wait to see the baby before deciding on a name, means we desparately need their assistance and can't wait to hear hundreds of unnecessary name suggestions we have no intention of using - LWG
My only suggestion is try not to make life difficult on the kids by giving them so-called creative names with wacky spelling (i.e. Khrys, Kayli, Jerrold, Jazmyn, Kloee, etc).
The parents end up looking illiterate, and the kids end up having to spell out their given name to every friend / teacher / date / HR person / retail salesperson / bank manager / dry cleaner / etc they encounter.
Use the KISS principle.
Nice surname. Congratulations on your son/daughter. Please tell me you didn't choose Rowan for your kid's name - I thought I was the only one, and I've already found one other on Google.
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