I love the idea of not sharing/finding out the gender of the baby or sharing his or her name. There is a lot of advice on here not to tell the name, but how many people do that? Have you kept the name and or gender a secret and were you happy with your decision?
I’m not pregnant yet 
but as far as the name things go, there’s been a situation in our family that makes us very thankful that we’ve never shared any potential names with anyone. DH and I have a relative on each side who is pregnant, and they’ve caved to pressure to share the names…our other relatives have torn them UP about their choices. The names? One relative and her husband like [name_u]Shawn[/name_u] or [name_u]Stacey[/name_u], the other relative likes [name_m]John[/name_m] or [name_f]Brenna[/name_f]. Last I’ve heard, each couple is talking about changing the names which makes me incredibly sad for them. We are keeping mum on that topic, even though no relative knows we are TTC.
As far as the gender, I think we’ll tell people. We would want to find out ourselves and couldn’t trust ourselves not to slip up (especially DH…all it would take is one person to cross his path and he would blurt it out). I’m sorry I can’t really give you a “this is what we did” answer…I’d love to be able to though [name_m]Just[/name_m] giving my two cents though.
My sister and her boyfriend kept the name of her 2nd child a secret until she was born. Towards the end of her first pregnancy, we all knew the name of their son because it was the only one they could agree on, but a handful of names they both agreed on were tossed about for the second pregnancy and she preferred it because there was always that availability to change their decision last minute. Although it’s there even if the name is announced, it saves people calling the bump the agreed name, buying personalised items etc until baby is born. Revealing the gender when they found out also helped them and us prepare for baby.
I have no children and I’m not pregnant, but I definitely don’t plan on telling anyone the name until baby is born. It’s not necessary for them to know and it leaves a bit of surprise because I plan on finding out and telling baby’s gender – it’ll help family who wanted to help to plan ahead.
Honestly, I know more people who tell baby’s name and gender (especially the latter, I see FB posts all the time of people revealing the gender literally as soon as they find out themselves) than those who don’t.
While I am not pregnant and we have no children yet, I do not plan on telling anyone the name or the gender in the future. I personally do not want to know the gender myself. I also don’t want any outside influence on the names, I think it would be fun to keep family guessing and it just feels natural to me to save those things for a surprise. I am a big fan of surprises. But I’m also someone who would not be bothered by someone disliking the names we choose so I wouldn’t want to have them telling me what’s wrong/bad about the names in an attempt to talk us out of using it. My Grandmother convinced my mother to change my brothers name for a silly reason, and I am perfectly fine avoiding all of that. Plus I think our families know us well enough to understand they don’t get final say.
I’m not pregnant and don’t have children yet, but I agree that I will not be sharing the name(s) with our family and friends. My reasoning is:
- I don’t want my family/friends to ruin a name we’ve worked on
- I’m somewhat indecisive, I think I’d be nervous to change the name last minute if everyone knows what it is an has already started referring to the baby as that name
- I would like to pick 2-3 names and figure out the best one when we meet the baby
I think it’s fun to tell the gender though! I would not be able to and would not want to keep the gender a secret.
Yes!! We kept the name of our son secret until he was born and I’m so glad we did! It was kind of hard with everyone always asking and then disappointed when we wouldn’t tell, but absolutely I will do the same again! Keeping the name secret allowed us to pick the name we love without having to hear everyone’s opinions and criticism - I know that would have been distressing and confusing and maybe would have made us reconsider and pick something we didn’t really want. And family did criticize the name we picked even after he was born, but at that point it’s “final” and not up for discussion. I would recommend that everyone keep the name secret, unless you really want input from other people. (I did tell his name to strangers who asked while I was pregnant so I could test it out, just not family or friends.)
In my family we tend to share the name and gender. There are pros and cons, as with all things.
My brother and his partner shared my niece’s intended name. All they heard were positive comments until they told my mother. She complained and berated the name at every turn. Eventually they grew tired of it and so [name_f]Marceline[/name_f] became K@c3y.
We didn’t keep [name_m]Alasdair[/name_m]'s name to ourselves. I’m glad for it too because when we lost him he had more of an identity to others than just “the baby you lost”. For that reason I’ll be sharing the name and gender of any future littles.
I’ve known people who have done both. I think it really depends on your family/social circle and how you are with negative comments. If you think negative comments will make you want to change the name you feel like is the one, it’s best not to share. Those that shared and regret it tend to be the ones that consider changing the name based on negative comments. [name_m]Even[/name_m] though there’s no name that will please everyone. For me, I do think it’s important to make sure that I’m not using a name of someone that’s done something traumatic to a family member, but I think it’s possible to ask that question without outing names.
I’m a share type of person, assuming no friends or acquaintances were to be pregnant at the same time. But, I’m also pretty decisive about what I like and stick to it, negative comments don’t really bother me. I’m not a fan of people keeping secrets, it makes me stop caring, so it would be sort of hypocritical for me to do it to my family.