Thursday, August 20, 2009
The Name: The Current Lists
Tomorrow we find out whether this baby is a boy or a girl. It's a momentous occasion for many reasons, and high on the list of reasons is the fact that we can then narrow the field of names down significantly and start getting down to business.
As I've mentioned, Shelly and I have had several name-related conversations already, involving both genders. From time to time, one of us will just say to the other one, "Hey, what do you think about this name?" Or we bring up names that were minor contenders for our first two children - especially the boy names we had batted back and forth in the early months of those pregnancies.
So there are quite a few candidates that have been proposed. Some have been endorsed principally by me, some by Shelly. Some, believe it or not, we both agree we like. And before half of the names get disqualified, I'd like to set out for the world the list of suggestions as it currently stands.
One of these lists is going to be eliminated tomorrow. I've always gotten a somewhat weird pleasure from knowing that if I had been a girl, the name my parents had picked out for me was Christine. Of course, back then, they didn't know my gender till they met me, and it was important to have one name of each gender ready. Nowadays, we don't need to narrow it down so far before knowing the gender. Our child can thus look back on the wrong-gender list here and wonder which of these candidates would have been the winner.
This is my attempt at making a complete list of names that have been proposed as candidates for our baby's first name. Having made these lists, I'm surprised that the boy list is so much longer than the girl list, when both Shelly and I agree there are a lot more fabulous girl names than fabulous boy names. I attribute the discrepancy to 1) us having made an effort to think of fabulous boy names because it's harder to do, and 2) (more importantly) the restriction on -ie and -y names, which eliminates a huge number of fabulous girl names. Anyway, whichever list makes it past tomorrow is certainly not closed to new suggestions (and there are probably some that I've inadvertently omitted anyway), but there's a good chance our baby's name is here.
Girls
Caroline
Faith
Georgia
Hazel
Hope
Isabel
Jane
Jenna
Julia
Katherine
Kyrie
Leah
Maria
Paige
Rachel
Rebecca
Sarah
Sasha
Boys
Aaron
Adam
Barack
Benjamin
Bradley
Brandon
Charles
Daniel
Darren
Enoch
Ezekiel
James
Jared
Jeffrey
Joel
Joseph
Kyle
Noah
Owen
Peter
Quinn
Scott
Seth
Todd
Trevor
Tyler
Tyson
Zachary
As I've mentioned, Shelly and I have had several name-related conversations already, involving both genders. From time to time, one of us will just say to the other one, "Hey, what do you think about this name?" Or we bring up names that were minor contenders for our first two children - especially the boy names we had batted back and forth in the early months of those pregnancies.
So there are quite a few candidates that have been proposed. Some have been endorsed principally by me, some by Shelly. Some, believe it or not, we both agree we like. And before half of the names get disqualified, I'd like to set out for the world the list of suggestions as it currently stands.
One of these lists is going to be eliminated tomorrow. I've always gotten a somewhat weird pleasure from knowing that if I had been a girl, the name my parents had picked out for me was Christine. Of course, back then, they didn't know my gender till they met me, and it was important to have one name of each gender ready. Nowadays, we don't need to narrow it down so far before knowing the gender. Our child can thus look back on the wrong-gender list here and wonder which of these candidates would have been the winner.
This is my attempt at making a complete list of names that have been proposed as candidates for our baby's first name. Having made these lists, I'm surprised that the boy list is so much longer than the girl list, when both Shelly and I agree there are a lot more fabulous girl names than fabulous boy names. I attribute the discrepancy to 1) us having made an effort to think of fabulous boy names because it's harder to do, and 2) (more importantly) the restriction on -ie and -y names, which eliminates a huge number of fabulous girl names. Anyway, whichever list makes it past tomorrow is certainly not closed to new suggestions (and there are probably some that I've inadvertently omitted anyway), but there's a good chance our baby's name is here.
Girls
Caroline
Faith
Georgia
Hazel
Hope
Isabel
Jane
Jenna
Julia
Katherine
Kyrie
Leah
Maria
Paige
Rachel
Rebecca
Sarah
Sasha
Boys
Aaron
Adam
Barack
Benjamin
Bradley
Brandon
Charles
Daniel
Darren
Enoch
Ezekiel
James
Jared
Jeffrey
Joel
Joseph
Kyle
Noah
Owen
Peter
Quinn
Scott
Seth
Todd
Trevor
Tyler
Tyson
Zachary
Comments:
Can I make a request? If it's a boy can you steer away from Jared. I've always wanted to name a boy Jared. And even if I never get a chance to, I would be really sad if I did have a boy and you already named a son Jared. I personally think that if its a girl you should name her Isabel because technically you'd be naming her after me - just this time in another language.
So you agree that a child should not have the same name as a cousin. Thank you.
Elise is a variant of Elizabeth, and frankly, it's a lot closer than Isabel. Isn't that enough for you?
Elise is a variant of Elizabeth, and frankly, it's a lot closer than Isabel. Isn't that enough for you?
Here's what about Tanya. It spiked in the late '60s to mid-'70s, and to our children's generation, it will be a quintessential "Mom" name. Just like someone your wife's age named Linda or Darlene.
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