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Sunday, May 24, 2009

Coming up with a name

Baby-making is the fun part.
Baby-naming. Not so much.
At least in our house where whatever name I throw out gets lambasted by my 5-year-old and my 40-year-old (who acts like the younger one by coming up with all sorts of goofy name-related jokes).

And people wonder why I just do whatever the fuck I want as if hubby has no say. He has ample say. He just wastes it on goofy retorts.

We are thinking of the names "Donovan" and "Catherine" for middle names. But I have certain rules about first names--Nothing that can be easily shortened into a nickname. Nothing that starts with an N or a G, since the other kids' names begin with those letters. Has to "go" with D's last name, so "L" names are mostly out of the running because they just sound weird to me. And the names should be similar in origin to D's last name or to other kids' names. For example, a name like Arabella or Qumar totally wouldn't mesh with the Old English/Irish origins of N and G. Oh, and it can't be in the top 100 names on the Social Security listing of 2008.

So here is what I've come up with for a boy :
  • Hugh Donovan (but someone said this sounded like a soap opera character's name, which TOTALLY turned me off it, but I'm desperate so it's still on the list, unless D keeps saying, "I like Hugh (huh-you) too," whenever I say I like the name Hugh.)
  • Keith Donovan
  • Quinn Donovan
  • Rhys Donovan
None of the other R names I had go with Donovan. Too many n sounds (Renn Donovan, Roan Donovan).

For a girl, I'm looking at:
  • Maeve Catherine
  • Tess Catherine
N always suggests names like Rachel, Christopher, and Michael. Like "normal" names. I keep telling her she can name her children anything she wants, but she insists my name suggestions are weird. As does her father.

I suspect the naming will take the remainder of the pregnancy.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love all the names, but have to say I love the name Rhys - I taught one that was a great kid. I also love the name Tess - beautiful!
Susan

Giselle said...

My opinion (because that's just what you need is MORE people piping in...)? Leave the 5 year old out of it completely. If we'd listened to the child, we would have 3 kids, Andrew, Crunchy, and Garcia. ;) I think you are doing quite well to have a short list with the 3rd. Jeff and I found out #3 was a boy, and that day we had two names we were kind of 'meh' about...and then we just picked one so we wouldn't have to debate it and look around for another. I just didn't CARE the 3rd time around. Although I am happy with what we picked...there was very little thought or meaning put into it. ;)

I like Maeve and Hugh. Tess feels like it is around more than Maeve...and I like how Maeve goes with N. and G.'s names. I don't think Hugh Donovan sounds soap opera-ish...I like how it is short and to the point like G. Again, goes well with the other 2 in style.

Kelsey said...

Do you know about Switstle's baby-naming blog? You could send the details to her and then you can get all kinds of feedback - if you want it! :-) And she could do it without pointing back here to your blog (per your request), so you could conceivably give your other kids' actual names and let people consider that.

Robin Elise Weiss, LCCE said...

Come on over to the baby naming forum at the site. We've got some naming mavens there who are excellent at picking names for people. I fall into the same boat. You'd think I'd run out of names eventually but NOOOO. ;-)

http://forums.about.com/ab-babynames/

Let me know about lunch when you're settled.