So my husband and I are talking baby names and having a hard time finding middle ground. We found a couple that we liked and were working through.
He liked the name [name_u]Penny[/name_u] and I really liked it as a nn. Unfortunately, we were having this conversation in front of my mother. She told us we couldn’t name our daughter [name_u]Penny[/name_u] because of this women my uncle used to date. She was like “remember she was a crazy drug addict.” Well since I was about 8 at the time, no i had completely forgotten. Until you brought it up!!! Now it’s the only thing I can think about.
My mother essentially ruined the name for us! So we have a new rule. Only he and I are talking about names. We are not telling anyone and we won’t announce the name until AFTER she is born.
Does anyone else have something similar to this? [name_m]How[/name_m] do you answer the nagging friends and family members who want to know what names you are thinking of?
I thought it was just a thing now to not discuss your baby name ideas with anyone until you just announce it once they are born, to avoid this very thing. For some reason there are a lot of very cruel and judgemental people out there. And weirdly entitled and opinionated. My husband and I won’t be telling anyone what are name ideas are. I don’t even want a signature on here because I don’t want people stealing my ideas lol. I think it makes it special that it’s only between the two of you. Unless you like talking about it with others, then I would keep it to very close friends or on here with people who share your style and just ignore the rude people.
That’s perfectly understandable. I imagine I would do a similar thing. Maybe tell a couple of people, like grandparents, but no more than that. I’m not even sure about telling people the gender, which I would like to know for picking out names. I think it would be nice to give all news one step later. Announce the pregnancy when I know the gender, announce the gender when we have the name, and keep the name for the birth.
I am not TTC yet but my partner and I have already decided to not discuss our names with our families until the baby has arrived. It’s a lot harder to hate on a name if it’s already attached to a cute little baby. While most people are polite or at least know the rule of “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it at all” I know my side of the family isn’t the best at filtering their thoughts. And I don’t want their input! Plus if I love a name I don’t want them making me feel bad about it before the little one has even arrived!
If family and friends are nagging you, just tell them you haven’t decided yet and you can always use the excuse of “Waiting to meet them before naming them” (Which is a totally valid option as well). You can also try to throw out some “decoy” names to throw them off the scent.
Also, it’s a lot more likely that friends won’t tell you they hate your name choices, but family always seems to want to have more input. It’s up to you who to tell, but when all else fails you can discuss options with us berries!
We didn’t tell anyone our son’s name prior to his delivery. Part of the reason was that we wanted to wait to meet him to pick a name, but we also didn’t want other people’s opinions so I wouldn’t even tell people the names we were considering. We would just tell people we would name him when we met him. That stopped most people from asking too many questions. We also kept his name secret because we weren’t going to follow a naming tradition for boys on my husband’s side and didn’t want any pressure from my father-in-law about it. We plan to do the same for the next baby.
We don’t share our names with anyone either. But also no one really asks. People might say “have you talked about names yet?” or such to someone expecting in the family, but “what are your names?” is never a question. Everyone in our family and friends has manners on this front lol
Ugh, my mother did something similar with a few names we liked! DH and I ended up setting similar boundaries. We won’t discuss any names that we are seriously considering, with anyone other than me posting on here. People are too cruel, too annoying, and act too entitled. Any children we have will be ours and we’ll name them what we wish.
Thankfully, since we aren’t expecting yet, we don’t get too much flack about baby names. However, we’ve found great success in responding to their inquiries/requests with “Well, what are some names that you like?” Sure, there’s always the risk that they’ll think they are getting input, but the people we’ve tried this on seemed to love the chance to talk about themselves and their wishes
