How to Name a Baby?

Hi S.,
I think I have an idea what you are dealing with, my husband and I had a really hard time selecting a name for our son. He has some really rigid ideas about names, for example, my sister's name is Maggi. Just Maggi, not Margaret, and it's spelled without the "e" at the end. As far as my hubby is concerned, this is totally outrageous. Any name that was the least bit unique, or spelled differently was out, as were any names that were even a little ethnic-sounding. We were left with a pretty short list to work from. In the end, I decided I really liked the name Harry. Simple, traditional, seems like it would have been right up hubby's alley, right? Wrong. Apparently it was too short, my husband considered it "a nickname." We finally agreed on Harrison, which made both of us happy, and was definitely the right choice for our little guy.
I would suggest trying to have him make a list of his favorites, and see if there is anything you like. If there isn't, maybe negotiate with the middle name? You pick the first name, he picks the middle, or something like that? One other little thing that I found helpful was to point out names I liked to my husband anytime I heard one, I would just mention the name and talk about why I liked it, and how it would work with our last name. It seemed that the more he thought about names the more he opened his mind about names for our baby. It may also help to find some common ground on names you both dislike, sometime once you can agree on what you don't want it can be easier to agree on what you do.
Good luck with the name and the rest of your pregnancy!

Some things I have heard are that short names are more popular for boys. think one syllable, they matched up pictures with names and inevitably the ones with shorter, one syllable names got higher ratings. Positive things in a name can help people be successful and even live longer, according to statistics. Doctors spent 5 minutes longer discussing patients whose surnames were at the beginning of the alphabet. Weird, but true. The double A, or Ty are both good names under these rules. Also consider your last name and that names that have a positive meaning are also best, and names that have negatives are hurtful. Best of luck.

It can be tough to agree - I've been there. I ended up getting to name #1 (at least my preference and he had veto power!). Then we reversed the plan for #2. I love both names and it worked for us.

Maybe you can choose 10 names each - then the other picks the one of the list. If it's a girl - use your list of names. If it's a boy - use his.... although you might need to decide that before tomorrow's ultrasound. How exciting! Good luck.

Coming up with names is very difficult. It's something they live with for the rest of their lives. When we had our first child, we discussed names at first and settled on a girl's name right off the bat. Of course we found out we were having a boy. I had a list of probably 20 names and my husband came to me with a list of probably 7. We each had the right to veto any name. I only liked one name on his list, the very first one and that ended up being the name we gave our son. I picked out the middle name because it was a name I'd always loved and it went well with our son's first and last name.

In a strange course of events, we took one name out of the running on the way to hospital to have our first child and decided that would be the name our second child would have. Yep, we'd named our second child before we had even had our first. When it came time to name our second child, we still agreed on the same name, but we were having a hard time deciding on a middle name, until my sister came up with a suggestion and it worked well.

We have friends who agreed that the husband would name all their boys and the wife their girls. They ended up with three boys and now the wife regrets going that route because they don't plan on having any more children.

Anyway, I think once you find out the sex, that will help. If writing a list doesn't work, then start looking everywhere for names like the end of movie credits, magazines, books, etc. Then bring up any name that interests you. You never know where a name is going to pop up that you both like.

Good luck and best wishes!

We have friends who let him name a boy and her a girl. He got the boy, so next baby is hers to name. Hope you figure something out!

Do you have the book "The Baby Name Wizard"? In my opinion, it's the only name book worth looking at. It's not just another dictionary--the author has categorized names and then listed sibling name suggestions with them. So, you could say "I like everything in this category," to narrow it down, or look closely at the suggested names for brothers and sisters, since you already have managed to name two kids.
Your husband doesn't sound THAT crazy, probably because I live with MY husband, who kept declaring that certain names "sounded fat," or "stripper-ish" or "like a kid who gets picked on," but rarely came up with his own ideas. (Sigh.)
I bet some of the categories in the Baby Name Wizard will appeal to both of you--some of them are just as arbitrary as your hubby's preferences--there's a "short and sweet" category that has names such as "Ty." There's a Web site, too, but it mainly lists names according to popularity in the U.S. The book has a lot more info and is definitely worth borrowing or buying.
Best wishes and congrats on your growing family!