My advice on baby naming (so glad you asked)

DanandVan

So I'm sitting here reading through these posts, and something occured to me. So many of us tell our family/friends what we will be naming our LO's only to face negative reactions all around. Myself included. We are naming our baby girl Gwendolyn, and my mother keeps saying "Are you sure!? I just don't want you to regret it later." Um, thanks Mom, we've had this name picked out for 2 years. Fairly sure we like it. SOOOO, here is the plan. We should just come up with the most horrific, god-awful baby names we can come up with and tell everyone that is what we are naming our babies.

For example, I should have announced that our darling baby would be named E'Ternity Heavenevaeh (like it? I just made it up. Its Heaven spelled forwards AND backwards! Beautiful!) After they give us all their negative reactions, we can follow up with "Oh, by the way, we changed our minds about the baby's name. We are actually going with *insert real baby name*." At that point, they will be so thrilled you aren't naming your baby the awful name, they will heap praise on you and claim that they love baby's name. Brilliant! I dare someone on here to try it!

GWUAlum

That sounds like so much fun! I'd be tempted to try it

Emerald27

We didn't tell anyone our name choice before Henry was born. It is a classic, traditional name, so we didn't expect anyone to really hate it, but we didn't want to hear stories about other Henry's and the associations folks had with the name. We told everyone the gender and kept the name a surprise.

TofuMama7

We've started doing this with my family (they know we're joking).

Whenever they ask what we're naming our daughter we say Drusilla. Then go on to say her nn will be Dru and isn't that cute? 

AimeeL85

Heavenevaeh literally made me LOL.

plunderb

We told everyone that DD's name was Snapdragon, the most awesome of the flower names.

quidditchcapn1120

I just might have to try this next time!

anvloveskme

Perfect

kerribear1717

We are non-tellers.  Last time the go-to name to tell people was Maverick.  Although we do like that name, it's much too out there for us.  But I'd say for most of my last pregnancy my family was referring to baby as Maverick (even though they knew we weren't really going to use it - or hoped we didn't).  And my BFFs tacked on Xavier as the mn.  So far from what we'd choose.

guilletskichuk

mj.reilly:

That is how I got DH to like a few names, too. Shared the ones I like, he was "eh." Waited a while, suggested some crappy names I knew he'd hate...and he would bring up the names I had mentioned before (the good ones). 

It has been brought up a few times in the past on here and a few people try it. It is also fun to see people's reactions when you tell them the fake "names."

Ooh! I think I'm going to have to try that!

And MJ is right. I've seen several people mention that they're doing this or are going to. We plan to.

I learned my lesson quite a few years ago when I asked a friend of a friend if she had any names picked out for her LO. She gave me the most horrendous names I'd ever heard and realized that, yeah, it was totally not my business to ask. lol I've just always loved names and I was curious! Since then I've learned to never ask. 

We're telling others that our name choices are Gertrude or Hortense and Igor.

Mrs.Frazier

We didn't tell our names until birth so while pregnant we called my oldest "Sha-nay-nay" and my oldest named my youngest "Monkey sister" while I was pregnant so that is what we called them until birth. 

Both times everyone was relieved we went with actual names. 

 

Elsa1984

I don't see any point. I guess if you don't want to hear any opinions, just don't say the name until after the baby arrives. There is no point saying an awful name and then saying the name you picked out before the baby is born because they can still comment on the name. People always want a say in baby's name, and will try and convince you to change your mind and pick something more their taste. We just picked a random nickname "Gator" and stuck with it. My friends just used "Peanut". When people asked her about a name and she said they had one but weren't telling until after he was born, they were hounded constantly from people trying to get it out of her. We just said we didn't have one and hasn't even made a list yet "but we are open to suggestions". Then people felt like they got a say and would mention all of these names, most we hated , and we would say "oh that is a cute one!" And pretend we cared. Really we mostly ignored it. And they all found out the name after she was born.

Cricket Bug

We have been calling our baby 'Ethel' for about 4 weeks now. We started it to curb my over bearing grandmother, and it has just kind of stuck! 

*please note that we are not actually naming our baby Ethel* 

doremi29

We are only sharing the middle name this time around because we got such bad reactions to DS's name.  Annoying/mean comments from friends- who didn't even stop once the baby arrived!!!!  DD's mn will be Julianne and it's a family name so no one really seems to dislike it or have issues with it.  So far we've just been saying "Well, Julianne is the mn and we're stuck on the fn".....then people go on to suggest their favorites and I act like I'm taking mental notes.  lol

kimmarie1105

I have been doing this. Some people don't like our first name with our last name. We have been telling everyone we are naming him Blaze. Let them suk on that for a while

SpruceGrouse

Everyone knew if we had a boy he would be Richard Scott but they couldn't say anything negative because it is for DH's dad and that would be too mean.

We just said we were undecided for the girl name and that worked but we instead kept hearing that we had to have it sorted out before the birth.

I think giving an awful name first would work for a short time but I think there would still be comments on the actual name anyway. 

CeCe8579

DD's fake name was Chiffon Taffeta! If she would've been a boy her fake name would've been Rufus Bocefus! We did it for fun and shock value really, haha!

dee12807

While I was pregnant with DS we called him Cornelius. Truthfully, we didn't have s name picked out until 2 days before we had him. This time we also don't have a name, so we call her Ida Mae (my great grandfather's sister's name) middle name Ernestine (H and I work for an Ernie). Everyone knows it's a joke, but we really can't stand when people say 'oh you have a name, you're just not telling!' It's like 'NO CRAZY PEOPLE, WE DON'T HAVE A NAME PICKED!' If we had a name picked we would just tell people we're not telling. We've found joking with a horrible name makes people drop the subject.

MrsTBird

doremi29:

We are only sharing the middle name this time around because we got such bad reactions to DS's name.nbsp;nbsp;Annoying/mean comments from friends who didn't even stop once the baby arrived!!!!nbsp; DD's mn will be Julianne and it's a family name so no one really seems to dislike it or have issues with it.nbsp; So far we've just been saying "Well, Julianne is the mn and we're stuck on the fn".....then people go on to suggest their favorites and I act like I'm taking mental notes.nbsp; lol

This is exactly what we do. All of our mn's are family names so I knew no one would argue with that. As for first names, we always told them we were stuck or that we weren't telling. I knew we would get some arguments with DS' name and thought it was best to keep it to ourselves. We always referred to him as Nugget and it stuck.

chibride4

The ongoing joke in my extended family is that each baby was going to be named Reggie. It started with my SIL's first LO, who we knew would have an "R" name. The Reggie thing drove her nuts, so of course, it continued with her second... and my first... and her third. By the time I had DS2, I had warmed up to the name and even considered nicknaming him Reggie. It never stuck.

Otherwise, I firmly abide to the "don't share the name in advance" approach.

CaraLynn91

This is what we plan on doing this time. I think it keeps it more of a surprise, and by the time they see that sweet face, they can't even hate on the name choice. 

jaymicans

I did this with my mother during my first pregnancy.  I told her I was naming my son Sidney (NN Sid).  Ofcourse his name was Trent...but it got her going far enough for her to say she was going to call him by a completely different name if I named him Sidney. 

jeffsjayme

We told family that a girl was gonna be iCarly Moonshine and a boy was going to be Remington Steele.

Didn't tell anyone the real name til he was born.

We'll definitely do that again. 

CayleighDawn

My BFF told me she was naming her daughter Boris. It stuck, and now I probably call her Boris more often than using her real name!

Sunidaze

DanandVan:

For example, I should have announced that our darling baby would be named E'Ternity Heavenevaeh (like it? I just made it up. Its Heaven spelled forwards AND backwards! Beautiful!) After they give us all their negative reactions, we can follow up with "Oh, by the way, we changed our minds about the baby's name. We are actually going with *insert real baby name*." At that point, they will be so thrilled you aren't naming your baby the awful name, they will heap praise on you and claim that they love baby's name. Brilliant! I dare someone on here to try it!

My only fear is that you have just given lurkers with bad ideas an even more brilliant bad idea. 

MrsJ723

We didn't share DS' name till after he was born and plan to do the same with this LO. 

Strunella

We did not share DS' name and jokingly told people his name was going to be Egbert.  

bananers

Our EDD is May 5 (cinco de mayo), so we've been telling everyone we're going with an authentic Mexican name (we are both white, with a German last name, which makes this idea even more ludicrous). I like to tell people our top contenders so far are Guadalupe, Carlos or Jesus.

Obviously (most) people know we're joking, but at least this deflects the question. 

strawberrytree

jeffsjayme:

We told family that a girl was gonna be iCarly Moonshine and a boy was going to be Remington Steele.Didn't tell anyone the real name til he was born.We'll definitely do that again.nbsp;

True story, I went to elementary school with a kid named Remington Steele.

We told my mom when she kept pressing that we were naming the baby Jayden Kayden. Initials JK, haha.