Has anyone waited until the birth of your child to choose the name? If so, was that easier or more difficult than choosing in advance?
For my daughter and son, we chose the names in advance. If this baby is a girl, we also have the name chosen. If this baby is a boy, we’re between 2 names and I was just wondering if when we see the baby we’ll know the “right” name. Luckily, we really like both names so I don’t feel like we’ll make a bad choice, but I’m curious to hear about others’ experiences choosing the name at birth.
In my case…see post DEVASTED AND DESPERATE…waiting until birth was the worst mistake I could personally ever had made. I even felt I was prepared w/list upon list but to no avail now I feel like we screwed ourselves (excuse the language). I wish you MUCH [name]LUCK[/name] much more than I had!
Worked great for us. Had two girl names picked out, looked at her and my husband and we both agreed on which one. [name]Will[/name] do it the same this time, I’m sure.
I waited until birth to choose the name for our fourth kid, second daughter and it was a massive fail. Total fubar, folks. I had terrible namer’s remorse and changed the name when she was 3 months old.
After that my husband and I made rock-solid policy that all names are picked between pregnancies, and choices finalized before I hit 17 weeks gestation. (also we have a non-disclosure agreement and frequently deploy appalling decoy names to keep Nosies at bay)
Somehow past that point my hormones take over and I become an indecisive pleaser with a tendency to think in circles.
I know some people who narrow the list and then wait till birth to meet the baby and give them the one that closest resembles the baby.
One friend had [name]Lauren[/name] and [name]Aubrey[/name] on her list, slightly favoring [name]Lauren[/name]. Her baby girl was born with a bunch of red hair that demanded a name like [name]Aubrey[/name].
It works for some people. I’m too obsessed about names for it to work for me.
We had it narrowed down before but there was a clear front runner. I just wanted a back up in case she really didn’t look like a [name]Lucia[/name]. In my head there were a few circumstances where based on how she looked it would have made us go with another choice so I felt good about our process.
My husband said beforehand that in the event we both felt like she looked like a different name, I would get the final say. According to him after all the pains and process of carrying her for 9 months, labor and delivery I deserved the final say. I agree!!!
I plan on taking my years (And I mean by the time I am married, pregnant and she/he is in my arms it will be years) of cultivated “My favourite name list” in with me to the delivery room/wait to see pictures when I adopt, and choose when I see her/him. I have my favorite name I truly hope to use on my first born boy and girl, but if she does not look like a [name]Gwendolyn[/name], then this cannot be her name. No remourse, no assumptions, just beautiful names and a beautiful baby.
We had names picked out beforehand (one boy name, one girl name) although of course there were still the other names we liked or considered previously as backup.
I must say I’m glad we decided beforehand because I was an emotional, hormonal, drugged up, second-guessing mess after giving birth! I doubted myself on our son’s name for months afterward because of hormones and postpartum depression, but my wonderful husband was always there to reassure me.
It was and still is the perfect name-- which I knew when we finalized it prior to his birth!
In my mind, the arrival of a new baby is always pretty overwhelming, and having a name picked beforehand means one less overwhelming decision to make once the baby comes!