Thursday 12 August 2010

Baby Names

It’s a mine field, there are so many possibilities out there and yet I still can’t find a boy’s name I love enough to want to call my baby. Joshua was easy and we had decided pretty early on, shame we used our second favourite name as his middle name and didn’t save it in case we had another boy.

It’s such a responsibility, and what it you chose a name you love now but might not love quite so much in a few years. Names come in and out of fashion incredibly quickly these days. You need to make sure the name works with the surname. That the initials don’t spell out something awful which would result in teasing. Although with our surname the kids are going to get teased any way – which makes all the more reason for choosing something sensible for the first name. Considering the shortened versions of names if equally important – we never shorten Joshua. We don’t like calling him Josh... thats not his name, so we don’t do it. But fact is as soon as he goes to school his friends will shorten his name. I like the name William but would hate for it to be shortened to Willy, which kids would no doubt come up with. Willy Allcock...can you imagine. Poor child, I could never inflict that on him.

I want to discuss names with people, but we’ve decided this time that we are not telling anyone if we decide on a name – or even what our options could be. Everyone already knows we are having a boy so we want to keep something a surprise. People are too opinionated on names – people have no issues in saying ‘Oh I hate that name’ to a name you really like. Honestly do they not realise how insensitive that is. However if they don’t find out the name till the baby is born, they will keep their opinions to themselves.

Do you choose a traditional name.
A common name.
Something unusually.
Something completely wacky.

You have to consider how the name sounds on a baby and if it’s a name that can make the transition into a sensible adult’s name. Some names take ‘daisy’ for example it is completely adorable for a little girl, but not a name I find I can take serious when an adult introduces themselves as daisy.

You could always take a leaf out of Victoria and David Beckham’s book and name your child after the place they were conceived but you could end up with something completely ridiculous like ‘Leamington.’ Not really a baby name is it?

Alternatively take a leaf out of Katie Price and Peter Andres book who names their daughter 'Princess Tiaamii.' I could name my son 'Prince Charming' or something utterly ridiculous. Imagine the looks I would get when people asked his name, could be worth doing it just for the responses I’d get.

I could make up a name, chances are my son would never meet another person with the same name but he would always be faced with responses like ‘How unusual’ and ‘How do you spell it?’ One option is spelling our surname backwards which just doesn’t work but spelling my maiden name backwards does. So another option is ‘Sirron.’ What do you think? Or I could take part of my name and part of Anthony’s name and create something like ‘Luthony’ or ‘Anucy’.

I guess I just need to go back and bury my head in my baby name book and hope somewhere in the next 14 weeks we manage to come up with something we love. If you have any super amazing suggestions feel free to pass them this way.

2 comments:

  1. uhh names are difficult. There are soo many names and its hard to decide. One thing is for sure, never ever will everyone around you love the name you choose. It's a big thing to choose the name for someone else who will have to life with it for the rest of his life, or at least till he is allowed to change it himself ;)
    I guess I would take a baby book and than just narrow the names down. You can never know if the name you choose will come out of fashion or if not one very creative child can change it into a nickname or something evil.
    You and Ant have done a very good job with choosing the name for Joshua you will choose a brilliant one again for No. 2 :D

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  2. I'm sure you will choose a lovely name for your second boy, it is such an imporant job that he will have for the rest of his life.

    Willy Allcock made me chuckle I admit!

    eek I do type 'Josh' on facebook a lot not Joshua! Fair enough his name is Joshua, if you wanted to call him Josh you would do! But I always call him Joshua when I see him.

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