The other day I came across this article on BabyCenter.com. Now that we know Baby G is a baby boy, the naming game is in full force. We’re pretty sure we’ve narrowed it down but can’t bring ourselves to announce it publicly… or really even call him by name. Tevie says he’d like to wait until he’s born to make it “official”. Hopefully when we see his precious face we’ll know for certain that we’ve chosen the right name. Here are the highlights from the article and things we’ve been talking over the last couple days.
1. No strange nickname/last name combos. When you shortened his name and combine it with our last name, we don't want something awful like "Hava Gooden". I can't tell you how many times a week I hear, "Have a Gooden. Get it? Have a good one. Ha ha ha!" Really, people, not funny anymore. Another old one? "If your name's Tevie is your brother VCR? Ha ha ha!" Again, really not funny anymore.
2. No weird initials. We don't want his name to spell out anything that could bring ridicule in elementary school.
3. No lifetime of corrections! Numero UNO on the list of parents named Tevie and Allysa. When you say his name I want people to #1) understand it and #2) be able to spell it. As it is, in this region you have to clarify that you're Gooden with an E not with an I. And apparently I don't enunciate well because on the phone people always think I'm saying "Goodman". Since he'll be spelling his last name his entire life, I at least want his first name to be manageable.
4. Not terribly popular. We want unique without being weird, while fulfilling the criteria above. The names we've chosen haven't been in the top 300 (or even 900) in nearly a decade.
5. No weird sibling pairings. One mom in the article said she liked the name Ella for her yet-to-be-born daughter... until she realized that when paired with her big brother, Sam, she'd be screaming, "Salmonella, come here!" Obviously, not a problem for us yet... unless we holler for Baby G and the dogs at the same time. :)
6. No humiliating email address. My most beloved professor at LWC is named Gerald Chafin. Because of the way we do email addresses at good ol' LW, his email is "chafing". Just another thing to think about when choosing names. :)
7. When you google it, what pops up? For a while we threw around Taylor Dane, until someone told us he was an 80's pop star. So, now we google name options to see what comes up. Obviously, if the first thing is a porn website or news articles about a convicted felon, we cross that name off the list. So far, when you search the varying combos of the name we like you get a bunch of articles and information about a professor from Rutgers, a bunch of ancestry/family tree sites for men with a similar name, and a ministry in Morganton, NC. Nothing that brings cause for concern.
Naming your child carries so much more anxiety than I could have ever imagined! It's his name FOREVER! Thankfully, the Lord already knows his name, the number of hairs on his precious little head, who he'll marry, what he'll major in in college, how tall he'll be and a host of other things I'd give anything to know! When I get overwhelmed by bedding, car seat, stroller, cloth diaper and other choices, I think back to the whole naming thing... and suddenly those don't seem like such a big deal. All of those things can be replaced... the Social Security Administration will start to think I am off my rocker (rightly so) if I'm sending in name change forms every six months.
Have my other mommy friends had this much trouble... or anxiety? :)
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