Are you sharing your baby name?

lauren8717

We have had a name picked out for a little girl for several years and I am 99.5% sure that we will be going with it.  However, I have decided not to reveal until at least closer to the due date (maybe baby shower.)  
But oh my gosh we have received so much flack from friends and family.  The number of times we have heard "Oh, you can tell me, we won't tell anyone" or "don't worry I won't judge the name" is really frustrating!  Ironically, friends seem to be even worse than family...
So are you planning to keep your chosen name under wraps? Has anyone else experienced this weird phenomenon where people feel entitled to know everything?  Should I not think it's a big deal and just divulge?

failuretofly

We did with DS and copped the same flack you did. Don't regret it for a second.  We will do the same this time around. 

MJDsquared

Already MIL hates our top boy name and DH talked to FIL tonight and he doesn't like any of the girl names on our list. I'm not sure if we'll even tell parents what we narrow it down to once we know the sex because I'm bitter about the IL's negativity (and I love my ILs).

Anyway, I know we for sure won't be going public with our name even if we do tell the parents. I think people just feel entitled to other people's pregnancies for some reason. I know that couples who choose not to find out the sex get a lot of flack too.

sjis

For DD we told the name to family in my third trimester. My mother did not like the name which irked me, but now she loves it. I understand keeping the first child's name under wraps. But now with DS on the way, we told everyone early and now DD can't stop saying his name which is awesome! For us, it's a way of making this new baby part of DD's vernacular.

Tennis11785

We're keeping it quiet. We haven't gotten too much flack for it yet, but I'm sure we will.  

tamaraaaa

We won't be sharing until the baby is born, same as my daughter.  People have a much harder time hating a name when it's actually associated with a baby.  You can't win when it comes to naming-some will love and some will hate.

breezybee

I just asked my husband this question and he says "hell no we're not telling anyone the names until after they're born. I don't want everyone's 2 cents about it."  So, I guess that's that lol

dkizz82

We revealed DD's at our gender reveal party. We haven't fully decided on a name for this little girl but we will reveal to family because I'm from the south and monograms
are everything! 

NME44

We might not know it's name until it's born, so I guess there's nothing to share.

AMCsquared

@dkizz82 Does this explain why my friend from Tennessee has everything monogrammed Omg!

And yeah I really don't care who says they don't like my name ideas. I'm not gonna keep a secret til December. I enjoy talking about my name options with people 

Marley629

We went public with DS right away and with this LO as well even though we knew we would get remarks about it. It's his name and I like to call him by it instead of just saying he or baby. Just my own personal preference. But I do find myself saying when people ask what the name is "I know most people don't like it but his name is..." 

missphil

There's always someone who will judge you for it! We are thinking of keeping the name we end up choosing for the birth this time around. For my first, my sister was the judgey culprit and my dad too (but not to my face). I really didn't care for their opinions since the name just felt right

eazybreezy225

I've always shared. I DGAF what other people's opinions are and I make it pretty clear when they voice it.

If an immediate member of mine or DHs family has a name we like we try to avoid using it and instead go with something similar or a second choice to avoid double names within the family (ie, we loved the name Emily but it was already the name of DH's niece, which would have been weird and confusing for everyone to have cousins with the same name, so we went with a different choice) But as far as distant relatives or friends go, all is fair game.

A few years ago a friend had a baby girl and named her the name we had picked for our girl who was due a few months later. We still named our daughter as planned despite comments from other friends etc... sure enough we moved out of town that year and our friendship died out.. If I had avoided naming my child what i wanted simply based on what my friend had named her baby I would have always regretted it, especially since we aren't even in each other's lives any more!

My point:: who cares what people think. Why keep it a secret if you really want to share? If you like the surprise factor of announcing the name at birth, that's awesome. But simply keeping it a secret because you fear backlash is just dumb IMO.

moonlady-2

It is not my style to name baby before it's born. I want to see him or her first. Of course we will have a short list. But I can honestly tell people "we don't know yet" so this won't really be an issue. Haven't decided if we will tell the top contenders.

leighalou91

We haven't decided if we will share yet. I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut though... so we'll see. I'd really like to not even share the sex of baby before delivery, but I don't know if I'm capable of keeping that information to myself lol.

marycatherine0523

We did last time with my daughter, and we have this week with our son. We are getting mixed reviews on the name, but they arent bothering me. We both love the name and meaning behind it enough to not care. I can totally see why people dont, its too much with people constantly thinking they have an input on something so personal.

dkizz82

@AMCsquared girl yes. I'm also from Tennessee, well originally Alabama, but in Tennessee now. I even had my toenails monogrammed one summer. 

mamaalicie

It doesn't matter if you tell people now or later the criticism will still be there. My boys are almost 2 and 1 and when I tell people there names, many times people don't even want to try and pronounce them. They are not hard to say just unusual. They have beautiful names both in the pronunciation and the meaning, people just always have an opinion, you just have to know how to handle the response. 

jlemons-2

My family seems to hate every name I even suggest so I might be forced to keep it secret. I told everyone DD's name and they liked it. 

blueskies17

I don't mind sharing the name, but my husband wants to keep it a secret. I told a few close friends before finding out how strongly he felt about that and had to tell them to keep their lips sealed.. :X

maddilatti

@dkizz82 Monograms are life! My DD literally has so many outfits with either her name or her monogram! I love a well placed monogram! 

anewadventure

helllllll no. no name sharing here. my families on both sides are full of strong and unwanted opinions. my DH and I also liked having something that felt like it was only known to us, since pregnancy seems to make every detail of your life and health of interest to other people. 

@dkizz82  you made me laugh because the ladies in my BMB for DS from the south legit have monogrammed EVERYTHING. and love it!

peachy13

We've pretty much already told everyone that we're keeping the name to ourselves until he/she is born, and all have respected that decision. Most of the time, the reaction from people is "oh that's smart." Only one person has said something negative about it, my sister. She is the reason we're keeping it a secret, as she has an opinion about everything or a little story about someone she doesn't like with a certain name, etc. She asked us if we could share at least the list of names we're thinking about, and I said no, that it would be a surprise. We'll share the sex of the baby but not the name! We do have THE names picked out whether it's a boy or girl, but I just keep telling people we have a short list to pretend like we're not sure yet. Otherwise people will hound us. But when I say we have a short list, people don't press any further. 

whiska

@lauren8717 Similar story here! We've had our boy name picked out for more than a decade and the girl's about 8 years. But we haven't told anyone and don't plan to until he/she gets here. Also like @moonlady-2 I really want to see baby before giving them a name. 

When people ask if we're sharing these names I say No. Firmly. No apologizing for wanting to keep something precious to me and my husband, that has been a touchstone for all these hopes and dreams, private and just for us. 

I do however bust out my lengthy rejected names list - because I looooove talking about baby names - and give them a sampling of our style. That takes the heat off me and directs the conversation to baby names in general and that person's preferences. 

thatlauragirl

We told right away with our son but aren't this time. We struggled with girl names and every time we had one we liked, it got old hearing everybody's opinion on why they didn't like it. 

balletnerd

We're not going to share until baby is here. I like the idea of having a few top choices and waiting till we see LO to decide. But I'm not telling my choices either.  

acgonzalez22

We have narrowed it down to 2 names and feel we will know which it will be when we see her. We have shared the names. We were team Green with my 1st and didn't share the names we had chosen. Your child, your decision no matter people say.

NME44

With my son we didn't share, but I couldn't even tell you why now. We didn't know if he was a boy or a girl, but we had a name picked for either.

with my daughter I named her as soon as we knew the sex and everyone knew her name. I got a lot of, "did you make that up?" No, I absolutely did not make it up. (It's not common but it isn't off the wall, either.) But no one said they didn't like it.

This one I'm having a hard time naming because I want to honor the last two grandparents but I'm not positive if we will just straight up use their names or give the baby two middles or what. Currently my favorite for a girl is Quinn, and my SIL might name her son due in October Quinn. My DH doesnt seem to think that's an issue so we'll see. 

And i I am currently the most wishy washy person ever on names, so everything I say must be taken with a grain of salt because I thought I was set before I was pregnant, then I thought I was set two weeks ago, and so now I don't trust me to not change my mind 7 more times.

flowerpower5838

We will share. I didn't experience anything negative in regards to sharing DS's name so I don't really see a reason not to do the same this time. Now that we are officially team pink though that would require us to actually agree on a name so who knows when that will be. 

cait5413

Like @whiska and @moonlady-2, we weren't sure of DD's name til she was born. But, I also planned to keep it under wraps anyway. I have watched too many friends have to listen to people's negative opinions on their kinds' names. In my experience, you get less of that once the kid is here and the name cannot be changed. Most people know our boy name because DH is the 4th in his family with the name and we will carry that on, but if LO is a boy he will definitely have a nickname. We probably won't decide on the nickname 100% until the baby arrives, but wouldn't share if we did. If LO is a girl, we don't have one name picked yet (DH and I tend not to agree! At one point he wanted to name DD Ember or Cinder, and I was like, "are you insane?"), but also probably won't share our top contenders. 

It is a little easier if you just say, "We won't be completely sure of the name til we meet baby!" If people know you'e set on a name, some of them will pester you to find out what it is. 

ETA: we still have monogrammed stuff for DD. We just didn't get it until she was born. We live in Mississippi; it's a requirement

jackiesmom324

no not sharing

kyrwyn

We have shared and most of the time I'm happy we did, but on occasion I wish we'd kept it to just us.  I'm glad that we got that first reaction stage out of the way early, because everyone in my family has something to say. (Hah. And some of it's actually good.)  I'm also glad because sharing and celebrating our milestones with family and friends is helping us connect with kiddo, and move forward in all the planning/preparation we need to do rather than holding our breath until December. But I also sometimes feel like we let other people into something that's very special to us, and they've gone and done their own thing with it.  

Full disclosure: about 80% of my annoyance with having shared our name come down to a single family member who is notoriously terrible about boundaries and co-opting other people's big moments. Unfortunately, she's married to one of the people I most want to include in our story -- my dad.  *shrug* 

rainbowdashh

I shared with my family but not publicly. No one has said anything to my face, and as long as they don't, I don't care what they think. He's already named.

MJDsquared

We will also have at least two names on hand in the hospital. We have a top boy and girl contender, but I don't want to be at the hospital and see baby and think, "That's not his/her name." Hopefully one of the two works.

I get so annoyed because DH puts SO much stock into what his dad thinks. Like he thinks his dad can do no wrong. So after his dad shit on our list of girls names last night, DH Googled our top contender (that has been top contender for at least a year) and casually goes, "Lots of people online don't like the name Lennon for a girl." *pause* "That doesn't change my mind though." Mhmm...wonder why you felt the need to Google it in the first place...

AMCsquared

@dkizz82 that is hilarious about the nails!

I feel left out of the keep the name a secret club lol

tamaraaaa

Another thing to think about-we changed DD'S name halfway through and someone had already got us a gift with the first name.  We thought for sure it would be her name, but after seeing her on multiple ultrasounds we knew the name didn't fit her.  We changed it and we were dead on-she was wild on every scan and she is wild in person.  The first name was a calm, sweet name that would have never been the perfect fit her current name is.

breezybee

@MJDsquared For the record - I LOVE the name Lennon for a girl. In fact, it's on my girl name list

AMCsquared

Ooo love that @breezybee

wabash15

we shared our options last time and will this time, though we did not settle on girls names until like 36 weeks. It will probably take us that long again. 

disneyfan0511

@NME44 we're in the same boat. We can't decide on a name and likely won't know until the baby is born. This happened with our second DD - she was nameless for a few hours. DH and I have very different naming styles so it's hard for us to find middle ground.

Tennis11785

@tamaraaaa - I'm def afraid of that.  Being 100% set on a name, sharing it with people, and then holding this little bundle and thinking "that's totally not her name."  

I have one friend from the south who gave me a little bit of flack for not sharing the name (become of monogramming). I assured her that there would be plenty of times to get things monogrammed once the baby was born....lol