Name Talk

Oh where to begin. I love names! I want to ask everyone about their names and their kid's names and their kid's doll's names and all the names! My baby stalking habit on Facebook is getting a little creepy. I spend far too much time on naming sites, checking name popularity stats, and reading birth announcements like only a true fellow name-lover could understand. I could probably talk about baby names for hours and of course they've really been on my brain these days. As with nearly everything I do, I'm always obsessed with making the most perfect decision ever known to man. If I make a mistake, I'm sticking my kid with it for life!

When I was younger, I sometimes wished that I had been named Emily or Ashley or something that ten of my friends were named. Now I don't mind having a different name and I actually kind of like it. Ok, my name doesn't seem all that different but the Irish way my parents pronounce it is different than the regular pronunciation. That part gets a little annoying but I've just stopped correcting people. The introvert in me doesn't think it's worth the mortifying moment of having to correct someone. At any rate, my parents put alot of thought into their decision and I've always appreciated that and the story behind it.

There are so many things to consider and I think that the motivations behind choosing a name are different for everyone. For us, it started out as

1. A name we both liked.

2. Something recognizable but different. Nothing popular or requiring our child to be known by first and last name to identify them.

3. A nice meaning is always good.

4. Family name for a middle.

With Theo, we didn't have any trouble at all. It's a name we have both always loved, we definitely didn't know any other Theo, it means "gift of God" (being 18 and pregnant, it never hurt to shove this fact in people's judgy faces...oops, did I just say that outloud) and we gave him my dad's name for a middle, which just happened to be a name that we both liked as well. We weren't sure if calling him Theo was too nick-namey, so we gave him the full name of Theodore, just in case he wants to use it when he becomes a doctor. No eyes were really raised with this one. I mean, maybe a few but I was completely sold and didn't care. We had to forbid a few people from calling him Teddy but no blood was shed. He's such a Theo and it was a perfect pick.

Then came Tallulah. To this day I cannot tell you how that name came about. I've always liked it but I had sort of forgotten about it until I was pregnant with her. If Theo had been a girl, his name would have been Norah. Tallulah wasn't even on the list. Somehow, I stumbled across it again and loved it. Loved. It. The look of it, the sound of it, the spunkiness. To me it was a unique but easy-to-say name that was a little retro, full of personality, and pretty. I didn't actually think it was all that out there until I tried it out on my husband. He thought I was nuts and wanted to "just call her Sarah or something." I tried to fall in love with a more conventional name but it just wasn't going to happen. I spent hours on the millions of name sites I pour over and nothing felt as right to me as that. So I started to try it out on my baby bump to see if I could turn Matt around. At first there was a lot of "stop calling her that!" but when she finally arrived, he said "So let's name her Tallulah then?" and the rest is history. It suits her perfectly. I had originally thought she would go by Lulah and wasn't a huge fan of Lu or Lulu. As names do, it changed with her and now she goes mainly by Lu or Lulu and a whole bunch of other nicknames that I never could have predicted. In the end, Matt seemed alright with Tallulah, so that sort of fit the first criteria. We definitely haven't met any other Tallulah's but people never seem to mishear it, probably thanks to Bruce Willis and that actress Tallulah Bankhead which I have tried to avoid finding out too much about because I heard she was rather wild and didn't wear underpants or something. Again, not about to look that up. Tallulah means "lady" or "princess" which seems to suit how very girly she is. Matt chose her middle name which honors his grandmother, so that box is checked off as well. Bonus: it's also super satisfying to say when she's in trouble AND I know that when she's running away from me, she knows exactly who I'm talking to!

I would say that I don't usually share my babies names before they are born but I don't think that that's actually true. My lack of self-control usually leads me to tell a few people and there are always a couple of close friends who I try it out on or corner to make them listen to my pro-con list. I think the problem with this is that if you put it out there for opinions, you actually get opinions. Duh. This can be really great and help you to think of things that you haven't thought of. It can also be really confusing and make you doubt your choice. Sometimes, there are good reasons to re-think (i.e. naming your kid after a Game of Thrones character, taking a normal name like Jake and turning it into Jaiyyke with a silent X, naming your kid something you completely made up on drugs at the birth, etc) but sometimes, it comes down to personal taste and I think you really just have to go with what you think is right for your kid. I put on this whole you-can't-tell-me-what-to-do air but really at heart, I think I'm a huge people pleaser and when it comes to something like this, I really really want everyone to love it as much as I do. I'm realizing this time around that a baby name that absolutely no one could have a problem with just does not exist. Which is great actually, because if that name did exist, everyone would be called the same thing and how boring would that be!

Our criteria has changed a bit over the years. When we picked a name for the baby we lost, we realized we had unknowingly added

5. No more T's. (Complete coincidence the first two times. I loved Tallulah's name too much in spite of the T but it irks me to this day.)

6. Full, possibly three syllable name with a nickname is a good option.

We ended up choosing Augustus (Gus) Matthew. Another name that seemed so very right to us and it meant a lot to me that we gave him a name that reflected his siblings'.

So what do you name a sibling for Theo, Tallulah, and Gus? I feel like we have really parked ourselves into a naming niche now. We almost need to add:

7. Kind of quirky or retro.

8. Something that goes with our other children.

Sibsets might not be important to everyone but they are too me. I've always sort of done a (hopefully sneaky) head tilt when someone says their kid's names are Peter, Anne and Jagger. What happened there? How is Jagger going to feel about his name being the one that doesn't go with the others? My feeling also extends to having an Isabella, Sophia and Sloane. It doesn't seem fair to give the two daughters such girly names and have Sloane stuck with a more masculine sounding one.

Plus, you can write off all the names that rhyme with your kid's names and anything that doesn't go. For example, we will never have a Theo and a Leo. Naming a child something like Lila wouldn't make much sense either because that's a lot of of L when you're calling Lulu and Lila across the playground.

Do you see what I mean?! It's like a name spiral. It makes my head hurt but I can't stop thinking about it! With this baby, we also don't know the gender so I really have to be on my game. My first instinct for a girl's name was actually much more of a classic choice than the one we seem to be heading for. Surprise! That was actually Matt's doing. I couldn't believe my ears. I'm trying to love our more classic choice and get Matt on board as well because, depending on how many future children we have, I'm going to have a really hard time coming up with many more individualistic names. We're still sort of waffling around but we seem to have at least solidly landed on a boy's name, much to my relief. I was worried for most of this pregnancy that if it was a boy, he would be nameless. Once again, when we found the name, it just fit. I mean, I hope it fits! We always have a few backups, just in case....