Choosing a name would be so easy....

Choosing a baby name would be so easy….if only I’d lived in a bubble all my life and had never met anyone else!

I started trying to choose a name for my first baby practically the minute the other little blue line appeared. I was so excited and my biggest concern was how on earth I was going to narrow down this impossibly long list of gorgeous names I’d compiled and choose only one? At this rate I was going to need to have at least twelve kids to use all my very favourite names.

Well I needn’t have worried, my husband had it narrowed down in seconds….he hated them ALL!! I couldn’t believe it. How could he not love them? They were so lovely and unusual and unique and, and, and…how could he not love them? I’d had no idea that finding a name that we both liked was going to be so difficult.

And this is about the time that choosing a name started to become less exciting and more of a frustrating lesson in how little I knew about my husbands taste in such things. He came up with a list of names he liked and I have to admit to being slightly horrified…they were the complete opposite of what I liked. They were the more common, practical, sturdy kinds of names that have been around for eons. Not quite your classic names such as Elizabeth and William, but names that were hugely common when we were both growing up. Names like Melissa, Nicole and Luke.

Now there is probably some Melissa’s or Luke’s out there thinking – “hey what’s wrong with my name?” and the simple answer is, nothing. The problem however lies in the fact that I grew up with several Melissa, Luke and Nicole’s and hearing those names creates an association in my mind to those people – some good, some bad. Every single name on my husbands list reminded me of someone I grew up with, went to school with or worked with.

The first name I scratched from the list was the name of my boss as an apprentice hairdresser. Not a pleasant lady and definitely not a person I wanted to think of every time someone said my babies’ name. The second name to go was that of my childhood nemesis. The girl made my life a living hell through high school so I’d be damned if I was going to name my first born after her, even if it was a lovely name! And the third to go was the name a friend’s niece. Now this little girl was incredibly cute and pretty….and she was also the devil incarnate! Ugh – no way! What if some of the character traits come with the name? Not happening, no thanks!

To be continued...