Parents to be have the huge task of deciding on a name for their little one. Choosing a name is not as easy as it sounds – in fact – trying to come up with a name for their child whether it’s their first or their fifth can actually lead to a bone of contention between the couple.
When families already have children, they often have more than just family and friends piping in to help name the baby – you also have the older siblings. So if you need some suggestions and tips on how to help manage the baby naming process here are a few key ideas to keep in mind:
- Keep a Name List – Add names to it when they are suggested and revisit it on a daily basis, eliminating the ones you don’t like – each parent should have right of veto on names they really don’t like
- Be sure to check the first name sound that goes with the last name and the initials, for years my mother-in-law has told us that originally she wanted to name her son Scott Michael, but that would have made his initial SML and she didn’t want them to be small, medium and large
- Names should have meaning, for you and your spouse as well as for the rest of the family, my daughter’s middle name is for my grandmother and the other middle names we chose was for his grandfather if she had been a he
- Unique spellings are great, but it can be hard for your child to deal with mispronunciations and spelling errors as they get older
- Take into account your other children’s names, for example – similar initials – in our family there are a lot of _JL names and two siblings are actually named Heather and Heath – and they didn’t plan that, but Heath was called Bud for years and when his sister was born, they named her Heather without realizing at first that Heather/Heath would be the same
- Look out for names that can be easily made into a nickname that you may or may not care for – my mother originally considered naming me Victoria, but she hated the idea of my being called Vicki so she made it my middle name
How did you come up with your baby’s name?
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