Boy names are impossible
Ever since we found out we’re having a boy, I’ve been all over the the baby name books and websites like white on rice a prego on Smarties.
But I’m about to give up. It’s impossible!
Why is it that I can fill an entire page with girls’ names, but when it comes to boys’ names? I can’t find ANYTHING that fits these criteria:
- Cool yet timeless/traditional
- Different but not “trendy”
- Simple and easy to spell/pronounce
- Can be pronounced in Polish and in French also (ideally, though not a deal breaker)
- Doesn’t cause husband to make a face and exclaim, “Ugh, I knew a [insert potential name here] and he was such a douchebag.”
Admittedly, it’s the last item that’s causing me the most hair-tearing-out moments.
For now, we’re bouncing between two names. Well, more like two with very, very VERY distant third, if Mr Fink’s eyeball rolling is any indication of how ridiculous he thinks I am for suggesting this name. But the thing is, I’m not quite 100% sure about any of them.
Aren’t I supposed to get some sort of telling little thrill that lets me know this is the one? This is the perfect name for our oh-so-special little boy. A name he will be proud of. A name that will take him anywhere he wants to go in life.
Or am I just delusional?
How on earth do you know you’ve found the right name(s)? I say name(s) plural because I really like the idea of finding two or three excellent candidates and choosing from those once the baby makes his grand appearance. (Or am I delusional about that too?)
These are some of the baby name resources I’ve been perusing:
Cool Names for Babies – Mostly a little too ‘out there’ for me
The Baby Name Bible – Amazing resource with fantastic (and sometimes funny!) descriptions but I went through every boy’s name in an hour and a half so can there really be 25,000 of them in there?
Nymbler.com – Neat filter which works based on what you think you might like
Nameberry.com – List of what was in/out for 2009 (and also the main site)
Babynamewizard.com/voyager – Really funky graph showing how names go up and down in popularity through the decades
What A Lovely Name.com – Pretty website and unique way of picking names, but not many of them on there
United States SSA Top Names for 2008
United States SSA Top Names Through the Decades
Baby name thread on the Weddingbee Babies forum – Definitely an interesting way to see what 2010 trends are going to be like
Baby’s Named A Bad, Bad Thing – Ok, not the greatest resource but sort of entertaining if you can get past the snarky tone
Know of any others that are worth a look?
When you picked a name for your baby, did you know instantly it was perfect or were you able to warm up to it?
My name is Kasia Fink and nothing makes me happier than finding goodness. This is a collection of my findings... I mean, finkings.
If you want to emai me we can discuss because I KNOW!!! We have two on the list that are pretty solid, but the one I love, Michael is only lukewarm about. And he’s vetoed practically every one I put out there. UGH.
We just found out that #2 is a boy as well!! So if nothing our two nameless boys will be best buds! We have 2 names on the list but agree, boy names are definetely tricker than girl ones. Yikes…hopefully our names aren’t the same! But little boys rule and they keep your house filled with laughter and insanity at all times!
SQUEEEEEE! We just started a little boys club of Vancouver!
We didn’t use any books or sites. But like you, we wanted 2 sets (first and middle) for a boy and a girl so that whatever it was, we’d have 2 names to choose from.
We went with family names. I knew my parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents names and e-mailed my mother-in-law to ask her for the info on my husband’s side of the family.
We had some AWESOME names to choose from, like:
Aurelia, Abbey, Iva, Hilda, Irene, Delia, and Marie for girls
Dennis, Malcolm, Gunnar, August, James, and Donald for boys.
Have you tried just looking through your family trees for inspiration?
Okay, please don’t be offended, but we are getting a German Shepherd male puppy, and had THE hardest time picking a name. Before we decided on the sex, we were trying to choose names and picked the female’s name in literally a second, but the male name was seriously hard. Everything you just described is almost 100% the conversation the husband and I had about our male puppy. I know, it’s not as important as your little bean, but I couldn’t believe the blog post when I read it! Good luck picking out a name, I can’t wait to find out which one you’ve chosen!
we’re not even pregnant but have our name lists already… we’re dorks i know. ours are either family or classic/timeless names.
i love the idea of having a few options though and giving him a name when he comes out… that way you can see him and hopefully one of those you’ve chosen will just fit him.
oh, and my favorite resource for names is the SSA and friends who are teachers from Pre-K through 2nd Grade… they’re able to tell you what names they’re starting to come across more often if you want to avoid a too popular name.
Ok, I’m not pregnant, have never been pregnant, have never named a baby…nothing like that. All I have is what my mom told me about naming me. She had a boy name picked out (Sammy). She didn’t have anything for a girl. When I was born and she was finally able to “meet” me, she said that she knew I was an “Emily.” I definitely think you should have a few solid name ideas before he is born, but I think when you actually “meet” him, face to face, you’ll know. Good luck!!
Can I just blame you for making me want Smarties now? Why is a pregnant woman on Smarties so like white on rice?!?
You will find the perfect name. I thought of my dog’s name while cooking one day and it sounded like magic to me. I dread the baby name discussion because my husband already has a girl name he likes, and when I suggested it as a middle name he now realized I was not as into it as he was. Remember what nicknames the names will come with too! It would also help if your husband new less douchebags, natch. :o)
What about family names? Or maybe hand your hubby a baby book and ask him to cross out all the douchebags first. Haha. I look forward to having the conversation in person (in between discussing Pillars of the Earth and Lost, of course).
My favorite is you can’t call it it! (youcantcallitit.com)
My favorite boy name that we can’t use bc a family member beat us to it: Miles. Love it!
When my parents went to the hospital, they were back and forth between two names: Stacey & Chloe. I still didn’t have a name the morning after I was born – until my mother’s breakfast arrived. It had a small container of ‘Stacey’s Apple Jelly’…it was a sign!
Just go to the hospital with the two/three names. You’ll know what to name him when you see him. (Or…scour your breakfast tray for ideas.)
@Courtney – Looking through family trees is an AWESOME suggestion. In fact, one of our two contenders is from our family tree (on his side). Unfortunately, my side of the tree has lots of Polish names on it that don’t translate well, like Wladyslaw, Kasimir and Wojciech.
@Lynn Soon – No offense taken! Those are important names too. I wish this was as easy as when I named our childhood dog though – my BFF at the time had a dog named Fifi so that’s what ours became too. (Good thing she was a ‘she’.)
@Barb – Ok well maybe it’s just this pregnant woman who’s all over Smarties like it’s going out of style.
@E @ Oh Apostrophe – LOVE THAT SITE!
@Stacey – With my luck, we’d end up calling him Jello. :)
I just started reading your blog as a link from Molly’s These Little Moments and I love it! I don’t have any kids and am not currently pregnant but I LOVE names and my husband is the same as yours. Every time i bring up a name I like he always makes a face and says no so I don’t know how we will ever name our kids! I do have a suggestion for your though… when my parents named my little brother, they used a family name but made it their own. My grandfather’s name was Max, but my mom didn’t want just Max so they named him Maxtun.
You’re a few weeks ahead of me. While our date to determine the sex had just been scheduled, we have two solid names (1 for boy and 1 for girl) picked out already. I was very solid on my girl name choice and hubby is very solid on the boy name. When they were brought up, both of us liked the choices and we knew we would stick with them. It is such a relief to because we had the hardest time naming our DOG! Good luck and can’t wait to find out what you decide.
Funnily enough, we found boy names more challenging than girls as well. A few weeks before our anatomy u/s (when we were supposed to find out the gender), we picked up a copy of “Baby Names” Canadian Edition at the grocery checkout. Hubby and I commute to work together, so for the next couple of weeks we went through every name in that little magazine. It was kind of neat too, because they separated the names into various categories, ie top names, nature names, celebrity names, celebrity children names etc (as well as simply alphabetical with meanings), so it sort of made us use our imaginations.
I would say about 97% of names were crossed out of that little magazine.
We had decided early on that we’d use family names as middle names and have our little one’s first name be all their own. So we didn’t look to our family for inspiration in that way.
Our shortlist for boys was:
-Logan
-Oliver
-Bennett
-Finn
(I also loved Todd and Elliott – but Patrick vetoed those :( )
But really, I think if we were expecting a boy it would have been between Logan and Bennett (and Logan would have been the clear winner if hubby had anything to say about it ;).
Once we learned we were expecting a girl, we played around with 2 or 3 first name/middle name combos. I really love a lot of popular girls names (Chloe, Ava, Abigail, Isabel etc) – while surprisingly hubby was drawn to more traditional first names. For us, it helped to actually say the names out loud – you know, try them on for size.
We did sort of had that “a ha!” moment when we picked her name (still a secret until birth day!). Hubby just said her full name out one day and we just “knew” that was it! Even though the name we choose was never one that I’d considered before or even thought of before. Hubby was actually the one that circled it early on in the little magazine we bought.
Names are tricky…but I also believe a child will grow into their name even if it might not seem “perfect” from the get go. Soon enough you’ll wonder how you ever considered any other name for your little one.
We also found naming her ahead of time really helped us bond with her even more :)
I would definitely agree on the family tree suggestion, or look at variations of names in the family tree. We just named our little guy Harry which took some getting used to (it was my husband’s pick) but now I love it and love the reactions I get to it!
Youcantcallitit.com has some interesting ones. We also had a book called A is for Atticus which had a lot of literary names in it.we used an old family surname for his middle name: Reid. But for his first name we decided we liked Garrison. Different but not trendy. Lord help us of we have another boy someday because that was the only name we ever found.
Oh…and you can look up names on the Social Security website and find out rank, etc. I went through the bottom 500 at one point looking for something…ANYTHING to name our boy :)
A friend of mine was having the same problem, so when I came across this blog post from “imperfect” http://lindseycheney.blogspot.com/2009/08/name-game.html , I made sure to pass it along to her. There are so many great name suggestions in the comments section, she found it really helpful! I hope you find it helpful too!
I’m of the opinion that it’s great to keep it down to 2 or 3 and decide once you have the baby! My parents had one with a distant second, but when they had my brother, they ended up deciding on the “second place” because they thought he looked more like that name.
Oy, we had the WORST time with names as well! And it’s funny, we thought it was harder because she was a girl. (So many choices!) We agonized and agonized, cut it down to a short list, tried out a few that didn’t feel quite right. And in the end, we wound up back at a name I picked for my “someday child” when I was 12. Talk about anticlimax.
Am not preggers, but I love names! As a writer, one of my favorite names resources is “Behind the Name” (http://www.behindthename.com/) which categorizes names by country/language and allows you to search for meanings as well. I love it.
Good luck!