Everyone has an opinion ... on Baby Names

“If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all.” 

It’s a phrase most people learn when they are very young.  It’s also a phrase I try to remember to instill good decision making for myself still to this day.

Unfortunately, many people in today’s society don’t follow this motto anymore.  A good portion of society believes they have the right to share their opinion, even if it means hurting someone’s feelings or personally attaching them.  With the huge presence of social media in pretty much all aspects of life, people now feel even more protected and confident that it is okay to share opinions, especially negative opinions.

Before our daughter was born, JC and I talked about how much we were going to share about Baby Fultz through his work “fan” page.  He has over 12,000 fans on this page now. We both decided on some limits for our family’s privacy.

Anderson's first time on TV at one month old.

Going home from the hospital.

Once Miss A was born and a few days had passed, her birth announcement was read over the news and posted on the news social media sites.  It was a joyous time for us as we shared the news of the arrival of our newborn with a good portion of Central Illinois.

Most people were very nice, offering congratulations and kind words of advice for JC through his social media pages; however with most things in life anymore there were negative comments.  Most of those comments revolved around the name we chose for our daughter.

Anderson Regen. 

It is unique and very different – exactly what I wanted.  JC and I both grew up with very common names.  We both like our names, but wanted to give Anderson a name that was strong, and would make her stand out.  Since it is a unique name, people always ask us if she is named after someone.  No she isn’t, we just liked the name.

Picking out Anderson’s first name was very easy compared to deciding on a middle name.  We threw around family names, then finally decided to pick a name that was not family so we did not cause any unintended hurt feelings. Her middle name, Regen (pronounced Ree-gan), is the German word for rain.  Both of our family lineage traces back to Germany, we traveled to Germany while I was pregnant and during the majority of all of the major events in our life (engagement and wedding) rain has been part of those times.  Her middle name is very fitting for our life experiences. 

Anderson, two days old.

 In the midst of all of the nice comments about “how cute” Anderson was, or “how happy” people were for us, there were a few mean comments directed toward her name.  One person said that he “couldn’t believe we would pick that name for our kid.”

Because of JC’s public figure job, and remembering my motto even though others did not during our happy time, we blocked out those mean comments from our mind during the happiest time of our life.

Picking out a name is a special job that parents have.  It isn’t an easy job either.  It takes much time, discussion and negotiation to come up with a baby name that is just perfect.  Before becoming a parent I would have opinions (that I kept to myself) about baby names and whether they were good or bad.  Now, knowing the heavy job naming a baby is – I choose to celebrate the parents in this life-changing time and their baby as he or she is welcomed into the world with a brand new, special name.