The Baby Name Game

Are you having a girl or boy?  And what are you going to name your baby?

Those two questions are by far the most common questions I have gotten during my pregnancy.  Both are also questions that we don’t know.

As I’ve written about in previous posts, JC and I decided to wait until birth to find out the sex of our baby.  The anticipated surprise and not making our baby fit into a stereotypical gender specific box were two of the reasons why we decided to wait the nine months for this surprise.

Since we don’t know the gender of our baby deciding names, like finding cute gender neutral clothing, has been a bigger task than if we knew our baby was going to be a boy or a girl.  We have to have at least one option ready for each sex.

JC and I have thrown around numerous names for each sex.  At this point we have it narrowed down to about two options for each; however middle names are still undecided.  At some points I like having a family name to serve as the middle name.  Other times it’s hard for me to choose a family name without feeling like I’m leaving someone out or will be offending someone in the naming process.

Even though we have names narrowed down to a few for each sex we have decided to keep those names to ourselves for a few reasons.

One being the fact that the baby may not look like his or her name at all and that’s something we won’t know until we get that first glimpse at Baby Fultz.  I think names fit people and certain names definitely don’t fit some individuals.  For this reason we are waiting until we meet our little one before giving them their name to make sure it fits his or her personality and looks.

The second reason why we are waiting is to prevent any feedback, negative or positive, about our name choice.  In the past few years most friends and family who have had babies find out the gender of the baby and then immediately reveal the name.  That is perfectly fine; however I am even guilty of expressing my opinion on name choices.  Some say it is good to get feedback on the name, because naming a baby is a big job and if people hate the name there may be other options that would fit better.  A name is not something that can easily be changed; however it’s also a very special thing that parents get to do.  I feel that new parents shouldn’t have to be stressed with pleasing friends or family about the name choice.  What makes them happy and what seems right for the baby is what matters.

 

 

JC and I are fairly unusual in this whole baby process with not finding out the gender and also not naming the baby before birth.  We’ve had many people express their opinions on both of these decisions, but I wouldn’t have done it any other way.  It has made the process extremely special for the two of us and will make the big reveal even more exciting.