What's Your Name?

Naming your child is tough. You have to think, they are going to have this name for their WHOLE life…unless they decide to change it when they’re older.

Being a teacher and then having a child of your own makes it especially tough to pick a name. We knew we wanted something unique, but also easy to pronounce, and ideally not the same name as someone who I had taught before. One of the names I really liked was “Myla”, but I had taught a student with that name.

Before we knew that we were having a girl, we had lists of boy’s names and girl’s names. I found the girl names a lot easier to come by, boys’ names were tough! Anyone else?? Almost every day, we’d be texting each other names during the work day or writing them down to discuss later.

We went back and forth on names for quite some time. Finally we narrowed it down to 3 boy names and 3 girl names (before we found out what we were having). Once we knew we were having a girl, we focused on names we thought would be suitable for a girl. I don’t remember when we had fully decided on the name together, but I felt like I had decided quite a while before my husband had.

Now my husband likes to be funny … so sometimes he’d say things like “oh we should name it May, short for Mayonnaise”, or “let’s name it Pan, short for Panini”. Of course he was kidding, but ultimately he originally came up with our little one’s name! He enjoys playing video games, so that’s where it came from…just like our dogs’ names. It was a name that just always stuck out to me, and met the criteria above.

Once we had (mostly) decided on the name, we didn’t tell anyone else what the name was - because that would have also given away that we were having a girl, and we didn’t tell anyone what we were having. We wanted to make sure that once she was born the name fit her. We also didn’t want anyone’s negative opinions about it, because we had heard stories of others telling people the name and them saying rude things about it!

How long did it take for you/your significant other to choose your child’s name? Did your name or their name “win”? Did you share the name with others before the arrival of your baby?

Remember, mama, that you are doing an amazing job with your little(s)!