When it comes to naming babies, people fall into two categories: they share the name before the baby comes or they wait until the baby arrives. My husband and I have learned from other expectant parents, that when it comes to sharing baby names, we would rather wait until the baby arrives. Why? Because some people are tacky and insensitive, and will always have an opinion about the names that we have chosen. For instance, if I told people we liked the name Lauren, someone will say, “Oh, I used to date a ‘Lauren.’ She was the worst person I’ve ever had as a girlfriend.” Or “My parents hamster is named ‘Lauren.'”
There is also the argument that it shouldn’t matter what people say about the name we have chosen. We have our reasons, therefore we should ignore what people say and stick with it. Sure, we can do that, but I really don’t care for the commentary. Why can’t people show some respect and say, “That’s a nice name,” and keep their negative comments to themselves?
Because we are not finding out the gender until the baby arrives, there are still people who like to interrogate us about what names we are considering if we have a girl or if we have a boy. If we refuse to share, we get the next question, “How about a hint?” Rolling my eyes… I say, “No. If I wanted you to guess I would have given you the names already.” But at times when we’ve just given up with the relatives who like to keep pestering us, we’ve come up with names to get them off our backs.
If it’s a girl, her name will be “Salsa.” If it’s a boy, his name will be “Chips.” Are you happy now?
Le Top blog 
When my parents were ‘pregnant’ they told everyone my name would be Carolyn Ann (if I was a girl – back then NO ONE knew the sex before birth!) The night before I arrived my parents went to see a movie – the heroines name was Christine. Guess what – they named me Christine! My grandmother, who obviously had her heart set on Carolyn, said she would never call me Christine, because the only person she knew with that name was the big fat lady down the street! Guess what – she never did call me Christine, she was one of only 3 people who called me ‘Chrissy’ – but I cannot imagine being anything now but Chris!
Chris(sy)…that is just hilarious! I’m surprised your grandmother didn’t just call you Carolyn anyway!
What was the movie your parents saw?
I don’t think we would have changed Lilah’s name no matter what people said since it was the only girls name we agreed on. The only problem we have now is that people always spell it Lila. Also instead of pronouncing it Lie La the family next door calls her Lay La. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve corrected them but they have it stuck in their minds that way. I guess she’ll have to correct them when she get older, if she cares. Or it just be their nickname for her.
Just a suggestion…try not to name all of your children with a name starting with the same letter…we were Julie, Jayne and Jill. To this day we laugh at how those names were yelled out by my dad when we were in trouble. Our names became one long sentence “Julie! I mean Jayne! I mean Jill…and so on..
Well, I don’t think it matters what the first initial of the name is…my Mom would yell out Chris…Kat…Rick…Bingo (that was our dog,) when she was trying to get our attention.
…I second Julie’s comment, we were Kristin and Kathryn (or Katie as she was nicknamed) and every time we were in trouble it was “KRATIE!”
….In response to Chris and TC’s comments, I have been everything from Kristin-Christian-Kris-Krissy-Kristy-kIrsty, kIrstin; and spelling it has always been a challenge for people, I still find myself saying “It’s I-N, not E-N”.
Funny comments from everyone!
I am definitely steering away from the same first initial theme because I also come from a family of J’s. Joe, Joseph, John, Jason, Jonas, Jordan, Jacob, Jamee…. And when my mom would call/yell for us, she sounded like a car that wouldn’t start. She just stalled on the “J…J…J…”
Ok, so I’ll admit in the heat of the moment when the kids frustrate me I start to spit! Why you wonder? Well, I named all my kids “S” names So it goes, “S, S, S, Sarah!” Eventually, spit comes out especially when I get mad! Of course, doesn’t help when my 15-year-old teenager says, “Well, it’s your fault that you named us all “S!” Despite that though, I love all their names, Sarah, Sam, Sophia and Spencer! I wouldn’t change it for the world. I did think about long and hard whether or not to continue with an S name after my 2nd, then someone pointed out that if I had 2 s names already the 3rd and 4th would feel left out. Hence, 2 more “s” names!
We also wouldn’t tell anyone what name we had decided on, which of course drove everyone crazy. Our families also asked for hints, gave us suggestions and told us which names they didn’t like (one of which was our choice for our daughter’s name).
Since not all of our family is local, and I’m not a phone person, we created a website to keep everyone up to date on the pregnancy and now on our daughter. So what I started doing was coming up with a different name each week to give them something to talk about. Most of these were quite outrageous and the first couple of weeks had some of our family members quite concerned that we were serious. Even though this was fun it didn’t stop them from continuing with their suggestions and guesses.
Well, we are coming down to the home stretch (4 weeks left) and the name thing is crazy!! When we had Spencer, we couldn’t really come up with any other name. So early on everyone started refering to my belly as baby Spencer. I almost felt obligated to name him that name as if he already was responding to it…. So we swore that with this name that we would keep the name a secret untill he/she was born. Yeah right!!!!! Nice thought. Apparently I am just as bad of a poker player as I am a secrey keeper. But again, we really only had 1 sure-fire name that we both kept going back to…… Although I REALLY love the name Jemma. So Grace Christine Ray she will be. All family names.
Speaking of names, I was named after a chocolate bar… There was this famous chocolate bar in Russia called “Alionka” (a nickname version of Elena) with a baby girl on the wrapping. When I was born, my mom took one look at me and said “Alionka!”. Unfortunately, Aliona wasn’t a “proper” Russian Orthodox name, so it was written as “Elena” on my birth certificate’s , which later became the name everyone called me. But I’m also called Len, Lena, Lenka, Lenushka, and Lenok.. 🙂
We have lived in the (deep) South for 3 1/2 years and there has been no other place we’ve been where so many families have the all-begin-with-the-first-same-letter name thing. I wondered if it was cultural or something, when a friend of mine was expecting her second (a daughter) whom she planned to name “Morgan.” Her first-born is “Mallory.” When I asked her if that is a Southern tradition, she answered, “No, we just already had so many cute monogrammed outfits with an ‘M’ on them.” It made sense to me!
Our first is due in a few months, and I think we’ve decided to put off deciding 100% on a name until right before she’s born. That way when people ask all the time (even people I barely know ask all the time) we can honestly say that we haven’t decided yet. It makes things easier! Plus, what happens if we pick a name, tell everyone, and when she comes out, the name just doesn’t suit her? On top of it all, I like surprises, so that’s what people are going to get!