Baby Memoirs – The Name Game

It is not long until my wife and I find out whether we are having a boy or a girl.  My guess is pretty much everyone in the family has a slight preference one way or another, but not a one would ever admit to it.  Perhaps that’s a topic for another day, or better yet, never.   I do know everyone will be pleased whatever the sex turns out to be and most of all they are mainly rooting for healthy.   

It’s not that I have any experience at this, but I presume learning whether it is a boy or girl is one of those “Watershed” moments in the pregnancy process.  Once the sex is known, my guess is everything gets kicked into high gear and everyone is going to have opinions on just about everything.   Of course, one of the biggest of those decisions is a name and I am quite sure all with be offering their two cents, and probably a bit more. 

Luckily, we can escape all this and make the issue a non-issue if we learn it is a boy, as my formal name is William D. Foote, IV and naturally I will want to carry it on for a fifth generation.   One might think there is a little pressure for me to produce a boy because of this, but that’s not really true.  I am too strong of person to allow something like that to cause me any stress.  The knowledge it will be me alone that is responsible for putting an end to this family legacy by not having a boy isn’t going to weigh me down.  I mean, it is only four generations equaling better than 125 years of heritage that essentially I will be killing.  Nope, no pressure whatsoever.        

One scenario worth considering is the chance of having twin boys.  That would throw quite a monkey wrench in things and there is no clear answer on how that is supposed to be handled.  That is, which of the two boys will be named William D. Foote V and which one will be a Joe, Frank or Fred Foote?  If one is and the other is not, we are talking about major therapy down the road on self esteem and feelings of inadequacy for the future Joey, Franky or Freddy Foote, which is not a good situation at all.  Besides, do you know how expensive therapy is these days? 

I guess an alternate solution could be to name each of them William D. Foote IV ½.  I’m not sure there are Roman numerals for fractions, so I’ll first need to check in to that.  Think about it though, it would not only keep my boys out of therapy, but it would also double the chance for the family name to be carried on another generation if one them has a boy down the road and names him William D. Foote V ½.  I guess if  one, or even both, of my twin boys also had twin boys, that could present a serious problem.  But for now I’m going to file it away as something to address later, especially in light of our most recent visit to the doctor.      

I’m not a trained M.D. by any measure, but the very latest sonogram pictures I saw appear to have only a single critter brewing in there.  If I’m right, that would surely put an end to the twin boys dilemma.  So more or less we are back to whether it is a boy or a girl.  Again, the case is closed on name if we have a boy and we can move right on to the next family deliberation about something important such as what color the crib is supposed to be.  However, if we find out it is going to be a girl, then things get a bit more complex. 

One option would be to name the girl after an extremely admired woman that is either within, or was within one of our two families.  I’m only guessing, but it seems fairly reasonable that other name seeking parents choose that option quite often.  It narrows the field to a few names and paves the way for a quick decision, which is what we need with the crib color and all else looming over us. 

Of course the difficulty with this scenario is when there are several admired women in your present day and also past day families, on both sides of the family no less.  So if there is only one name to hand out, or maybe two for a middle name, we would more or less be forced to grade everyone and select the very best of the bunch.  We have both been lucky enough to have some very terrific women in our lives and upsetting the apple cart by hurting anyone’s feelings is just a bad idea altogether.  So let’s scratch the “naming after” option off the list. 

You would think this naming game would be easier for me than it is.   After all, I’ve taken great pleasure in coming up with names for all three of our dogs.  Essentially, each name is a modified version of some sort of important figure from the past.  One of the names came from mythology.  The next name was selected not only because she was an ancient Greek Princess, but was also a central figure in many of Shakespeare’s writings.  The third name was taken from a famous actress from the 1930’s who was known to be outspoken and a little on the wild side, which “fit to a t” the personality of our new family member.  There is little chance however my wife will allow me to use this same sort of naming premise should we have a baby girl.  No way.  No how.  Even if hell were to indeed freeze over, she would probably still say no.  Nevertheless, I still think it is a creative way to go about things no matter what she thinks, but for now I’ll scratch this method off the list as well.

My mother-in-law used an interesting method in naming my wife and brother-in-law.   That is, she took two somewhat ordinary names, but changed up their spelling to add some uniqueness to them.  On the surface this seems like a pretty good idea, but there are definitely some hidden drawbacks.  One of the main issues is that it causes a tremendous amount of confusion when people need to spell your name, which is quite often over the course of a life.  Correcting these people is not only impolite, but more importantly it sucks up our most precious resource, which is time.

I’ve been with my wife about six years now and I can tell you the mistaken spelling issue occurs all too often.  In isolation, this may not seem like a big deal, but it definitely adds up.  Just imagine for a moment how much time in aggregate will be spent over the course of a life clearing up the spelling confusions.  We are not just talking hours, but more likely days and even weeks.   So while I agree it is quite creative and unique, we need to remember this a competitive world we live in.  The loss in productivity this could create for our child could have serious implications down the road and I just don’t think we should risk that.    

In my opinion, by far the best solution to the name dilemma is to download a “Baby Names” app for my IPhone.  The “iPeriod” application we downloaded and that I have mentioned previously on these pages worked like a charm.  If you recall, that nifty little app helped determine exactly when my wife was ovulating and then let us know exactly when it was time to get busy.  So I figure why not go back to the well and see what it could do about coming up with names.   The “iPeriod” application cost us only 99 cents and the baby names application is also just 99 cents.  I forgot to mention that you don’t even have to pay sales tax when buying these applications, so basically you can figure out how to conceive a child and also what to name it for $1.98.   Case closed, as this nifty little software could help resolve a lot of problems in my opinion.      

With my trusty new “Baby Names” app installed and ready to roll, I was able to search through hundreds of different name recommendations.   For lack of better words, the thing is remarkable.  I cannot begin to tell you how many names are in there that previously I would not have thought of.  After several hours of searching, I came across two names in particular that I really fell in love with and I couldn’t wait to share them with my wife.  

As soon as I saw her, I gave her the good news about my recent research and offered my top two choices.  She told me that she really likes those two names as well, but that they are already taken.  Uhhmmm … what?  What the hell does taken mean?  She proceeded to let me know that two of her friends have children with those same names, so we are not allowed to use them.  Maybe it is just me, but I cannot find a whole lot of logic in allowing the name of someone else’s kids play any role whatsoever in the matter.  I mean, we are only talking about a decision that will impact our first child each and every day for what could be the next 80+ years of their precious life, but instead we will settle for something less because a kid I’ve never even met has already taken our name.  This is a fairly hard concept for me to grasp.   

As I have mentioned in the past, my wife has about a bazillion friends and it’s probably safe to assume that the number of their offspring is well in excess of two bazillion.   This leaves us very few options to choose from and I’m not about to start throwing letters together to come up with some never been heard before name.  This may fly in some ethnicities or cultures, but to me it is altogether a bad idea in our own.    

I guess we could just not name our child, which is an approach my mom uses with many of her dogs.  For example, she has a seven year old Tea Cup Poodle that to this day has no name.  My mom is waiting to become more familiar with its personality prior to settling on something permanent.  Strangely enough, there is a bit of logic to this and better yet, it would put having to deal with the “Name Game” on the backburner for a few years.  That would be one less thing to do in preparation and seems like a pretty solid idea given just how much has to be done.

 I’ll run this option by my wife this evening to see what she says.                          



Comments

[ELIZABETH AKA GRAN'MAMA TO BE]

I HAVE A GREAT IDEA SHOULD THERE BE A TWIN BEBE' LURKING. 'MASTER WILLIAM DAINGERFIELD FOOTE V' AND 'MASTER WILLIAM DAINGERIELD FOOTE VI', DEPENDING ON TIME OF ARRIVAL. THAT WAY YOU SECURE THE NEXT TWO GENERATIONS TO HERALD THE ARRIVAL OF 'BABY BRAT V' AND 'BABY BRAT VI' THE MARVELOUS MONIKER WOULD CONTINUE ON AND I AM MOST ASSURED 'WILLIAM DAINGERFIELD FOOTE III' WOULD BE THRILLED TO DEATH.

[ELIZABETH AKA GRAN'MAMA TO BE]

A MAJOR OOPS! THAT WOIULD BE BILLY BABY V AND BILLY BABY VI................