Thursday, January 14, 2010

Any Suggestions?

We could use your help.
Before I had children, naming them seemed to be one of the fun parts. I knew it carried a certain amount of responsibility, I mean, the name I gave would essentially be that child's identity for life, but fun, none-the-less.
I neglected to factor in the fact that my child would have a father. Small oversight on my part, I know. And that father would have a say in what our child's name was. And that father and I would have very DIFFERENT ideas as to what constitutes a good name. Suddenly, when pregnant for the first time, I was confronted with the fact that, not only was naming a child fun, it was HARD!
Actually, we agreed on a boy's name the first day. Not bad! I knew from that moment we would have a girl. We didn't officially decide on a name for our poor firstborn until the morning after she was born. Then our second came along, and we used up our reservoir of girls-names-we-can-agree-on. Now we're expecting our third. What if God blesses us with another girl? Will she be forced to go through life nameless? Will one of us have to resign ourselves to a name we don't like? Will we each have our own name for her (I know of a couple who did that) and totally confuse the poor child?
Do you have any suggestions? To help you out a bit, and try to narrow it down a bit more than those overwhelming baby name books for us, I'll fill you in a bit on our naming ideals. The best way I can think to describe our style would be familiar, yet not too common. Karl leans more toward the familiar (Rachel, Sarah), while I lean more toward the uncommon (Karis, Annika, Daria). We DON'T want to do another H. I really debated about doing two, but three would simply be too much. And we like names that are decidedly feminine, nothing that could sound like a boy. For Karl, it can't sound too close to something else (example Daria = diarrhea, Natalia = Nutella) and he has to have heard it before. For my California friends, this gets a bit tricky as he had never heard the name Summer until he met my sister, yet names like Gerhard, Dietrich, and Lynden are common fare. Please, suggest away! But don't feel too bad if your suggestions aren't used, we are obviously overly picky when it comes to choosing names for these wonderful children God blesses us with.

6 comments:

  1. Sheesh. Why are men so PICKY on this subject?!!
    I tells ya.

    I finally put my foot down this time on a girls middle name I had been rooting for all five times before. AJ conceded to let me have my way and so it figures we had a boy (not that I'm complaining).

    Haven't you found though, that the person you bore rather makes the name? Not the other way around? I was surprised to find that after my first.
    Perhaps you could agree to name a girl and let Karl name a boy?
    Just making that suggestion because AJ was the one who picked Clayton and it wans't my favorite but I figured a dad would know how to name a son. All that to say Clayton is now one of my favorite names we used! That little face and personality has won me over for ever - whatever his name is!

    I'll think about names for you, but if you want my advice: get Heather involved. She's amazing at name suggestions! (and she'll give you a LOT to choose from) ;-)

    Love to you Wagenhoffers!!!

    'Lene

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  2. Hmmm...I don't have any girls yet. My husband and I both agreed on on the boy's names but he was the one to officially pick them out (them being the boys, him being the Dad and all). :-)
    What if you picked the first name and your husband picked the middle name? Or visa versa. Or maybe pick a basic name (like what your husband likes) and look up variations of it to make it more unique. For instance, Rachel can also be Rochelle/ Raquel and Sarah can also be Sadie/Sarai etc.
    All in all, I agree with Analene. I was so worried that the names we picked just wouldn't fit the kids, no matter how much I liked the names. But the kids own the names, not the other way around. :-)

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  3. I agree that the child does make the name, but somehow it helps if you don't start out entirely opposed to it. I appreciate your suggestions, but we agree on boys names, in fact, I think we'd manage just fine even if we had those triplets Karl keeps teasing me about - so long as they're male. (the naming them that is, I'm not so sure how I'd do with three newborns at once!)
    It's these wonderful girls of ours that give us a difficult time. We agreed at the beginning that we wouldn't make the other go through life with a child whose name they couldn't stand. It seems easy enough, but that's how it is with every name on our favorites list - the other person doesn't like them at all! So we're left scrambling for something we both at least somewhat like. Karl's actually the one who ended up picking both our girls' names. (Which, as you say, have grown on me more and more as I come to know the children who bear them.)
    The other option, of course, is letting Heidi choose. She has no end of suggestions for me. Somehow, though, I'm thinking it could be a bit difficult to go through life as Fronjenna, Ropopo, or Frumblebumble. I'm sure we can find something before we get that deperate!
    And, Analene, I think Auntie Lene'a'lene is by far the cutest Auntie name I have ever heard! Good work Ellie!

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  4. Well, since you keep following our pattern, I don't think you'll have to worry about a girl's name...;)
    But, I know you'll still want a girl name picked out, so....nameberry.com has the best name lists I've ever seen. You can get lists emailed to you daily and then talk about the names with your hubby. I still get them even though I'm not currently pregnant as I love baby names. =)

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  5. PS - I laughed out loud that Karl thinks Natalia sounds like Nutella! Totally made my day!

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  6. I LOVE names, and had the same problem with my honey...just didn't agree on our last girl name. We kept her original name but couldn't agree on a middle name, for pete's sake! I like unusual but not impossible names, but we ended up with very traditional names...somehow! Exept for one anyway. Obviously, I love the name Bethany, it has a bit of traditional and different. Love the name Annika. I've heard of the name Karis being used quite a bit lately, but do like it a lot. My faves are Kaiyah (means "forgiveness" in Japanese), Tatianna and Micheala

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