Picking Baby Names

Agreeing on baby names was rough to say the least. 

First, we started looking at names right away (which I think is the first impulse for many couples) so we had to duke it out on two sets of names since we won't know the sex until week 20.  Second, there were family traditions that needed to be considered.  The first born male in my family always takes his dad's name as his middle name.  So that limits the names you can name a boy (since my name is Adam, the kid would be Something Adam, so for example all A names don't sound too good.)  Third, and most importantly, people have a lot of baggage when it comes to names.  Take the names of all of the ex-boyfriends, ex-girlfriends, assholes, whores, sluts, idiots, burnouts etc that you and your partner have ever known and toss them out.  You don't want a kid that reminds you of a weekend in Vegas and some bad choices you made 7 years ago do you?

To avoid a lot of pointless back and forth: 

• Start by getting a good source for baby names.  There are tons out there but we used 100,000 + Baby Names: The Most Complete Baby Name Book: Including 300+ Fascinating Lists, The Latest Naming Trends, Key to Gender-Neutral Names.
• Have one person go through the list highlighting every name they like. 
• Then the other person goes through and does the same. 
• Highlight the names in different colors so you know who picked what. 
• Then go through and look together at names you both selected and the other person's choices.  A name might jump out at you that you didn't consider.

My wife and I bumped heads for weeks on baby names until we did this during a long car ride to the lake for a vacation with her family.  We sat back and selected names we liked, then talked about the mutual choices, and as a bonus got input from her family.

So what baby names did we choose?  Sorry, can't tell you right now.  Check out the next post as to why!