"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."
By any other name would smell as sweet."
(RAJ.II.ii.45-46)
The days, weeks, and months of the pregnancy are flying by and we have a problem; we cannot choose a name. We have looked at baby name books, baby name websites, and baby name apps. We have looked at literally thousands of names. At this point, we might have to borrow a page from Dr. Seuss and call our children Thing 1, Thing 2, and so on. We have a couple of issues when it comes to choosing names, and they have all come together to create a perfect storm of nameless-ness.
First of all, the name has to be semi-bilingual. Because of my heritage, this is something that is a priority for us. Both our families have to be able to pronounce the names.
Secondly, I don't like names. Most of the name rejections have come from me, and I can't really explain why. We will read the list, and I won't like them. Sometimes I have very specific reasons for not liking a particular name, but most of the time I just don't like it.
Let's look at Shakespeare's words for just a moment. What was Juliet saying when she asked the question, "What's in a name?" Why are names so important. If roses were known by a different name, would they smell or look different? I don't think so, and neither does Shakespeare.
There is a lot more that I can say about names, but it comes down to this; we don't have any names chosen. We are past the half-way point of the pregnancy and we have yet to make a decision. We will soon find out if its a boy or a girl, and I suppose that will make thing a bit easier. Until then, we will keep scrolling through web sites, flipping through the pages of baby name books, or maybe it will just come to us.
If you have any suggestions please let me know, but don't feel bad if your suggestion falls into the reject pile.
There is a lot more that I can say about names, but it comes down to this; we don't have any names chosen. We are past the half-way point of the pregnancy and we have yet to make a decision. We will soon find out if its a boy or a girl, and I suppose that will make thing a bit easier. Until then, we will keep scrolling through web sites, flipping through the pages of baby name books, or maybe it will just come to us.
If you have any suggestions please let me know, but don't feel bad if your suggestion falls into the reject pile.
I thought the Dr. Seuss solution was the name them all Dave!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171612
But seriously, my husband and I have the same exact set of problems. He rejects three quarters of the names I come out with out of hand- ESPECIALLY the "ethnic" ones. And that I get. His family can't be expected not to butcher the "chai" sound of names like "Nachum" and "Chava," which are pronounced as though they had a spanish 'g' versus an english "ch."
Then on top of that there's the intuition *I* feel about what the child will actually be like, and whether a particular name will fit.
Right now we've got a tentative name for our new bean, but I'm less fond of it than I was in the beginning... and my husband HATES having "the name conversation" with me.
Is that a guy thing?
We also have a few tentative names, but we are only going to be able to have one boy and one girl at this rate. I think we don't like the topic because we know its going to go nowhere.
DeleteI couldn't resist but sharing this - http://theworldofmyimagination.blogspot.com/2012/01/writers-toolbox-naming-your-characters.html
ReplyDeleteOn my blog, I write about the writing process and what not, and I recently wrote about tips for naming your characters. Maybe you will find some use in this post! I provided some great tools for figuring out names. Good luck! :)
Thank you! I will take a look at it.
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