We’re not very far along, and up until this week I was surprisingly not anxious to start talking about names. I’m just starting to come around, partly because I’ve been looking at monogram-friendly nursery decor and birth announcement designs. Still, I haven’t yet pushed the issue with my non-planner husband, who I’m quite sure would just say “names? Already??”
We don’t plan to find out the gender before birth, which I can see making it both more and less difficult in different ways.
[name]How[/name] far along were you when you started talking with your partner about names?
I’d love to start discussing names now, but my husband has said not until we’re pregnant! We’re TTC atm. As soon as I get my positive, I’m sure I’ll start barraging him with names immediately! We’ve had a couple of brief discussions already, but nothing too serious. I’ve already had a few preliminary discussions with my mum. In the meantime, nameberry feeds my addiction
OMG- my hubby isn’t a planner either and it was almost the death of me during my pregnancy! We started talking about names years before I was pregnant, just for fun (more for me than for him.) It got serious once we got the + sign on the stick, but he was soooo noncommittal about all of them. We decided not to find out the sex either, and that was a big stumbling block for him. He was so sure it was a girl, and I was so sure it was a boy that he never wanted to decide on a little boy’s name. I wasn’t crazy in love with our girl’s name, but I just KNEW in my heart our baby was a boy, so I decided not to fight that battle. The thing that saved us was, at our 32 week appointment (I think?? It was a very late appointment, but not sure which month exactly) I saw another doctor in the same practice as my regular doctor, and when I was leaving she gave me a goodie bag to take home. In the goodie bag was a burp cloth with a stork on it carrying a blue bundle!!! I looked at it and KNEW I had been right all along. That burp cloth convinced my husband to FINALLY decide on a name for a little boy, but we were pretty close to the end of the pregnancy at that point. ([name]Way[/name] too close in my opinion.) Sometimes I still feel like we ‘rushed’ it a little bit. This time, I’m taking NO chances. We already have our second boy’s name selected ([name]George[/name] [name]Barrett[/name]) and are currently working on the girl’s ([name]Margo[/name] something…). Good luck!!
Ugh. My husband hates names and thinks nameberry is the devil. With our son, the first name was set in stone due to cultural precedent, but he wouldn’t have a serious conversation about the middle until I was 4 days overdue. With this one, he promises to start thinking about it once the gender is really locked down (he’s suspicious of the 12-week guestimate), but I am skeptical.
To make it worse, he is a very opinionated person. He argues for a living and is very good at it. It’s very frustrating for us to have equal say when one person (me) spends a great deal of time thinking and researching, whereas the other uninformed person (him) simply exerts a firm veto with no chance to even explain the reasoning behind my choices or why I’m attracted to particular options.
Occasionally he is constructive instead of overtly critical. He infrequently stalks me on nameberry (god knows why) and found the thread I started soliciting feedback & options on girls’ names. He mentioned that he found the word “mound” to be prominent in [name]Rosamond[/name] and could never get behind it. That, to me, is a perfectly good reason not to select that name, even if I don’t see it myself.
We’ve been discussing name since a year after we started dating. We’re settled on a first name for both a girl and boy. He’s not big on naming (which worked out for me because I just had to suggest and if he liked the sound of it he agreed!)
Um…we started talking names before we were even married. LOL!
Honestly, I don’t remember at what point in the pregnancy we started really trying to nail it down. We also didn’t find out our baby’s gender before the birth. I don’t feel like it made things any more difficult. I suppose maybe I would feel differently if we had had a boy,though, because our boy name choice was easy (we came up with the first name long before we even started trying to conceive and the middle name was dictated by family tradition) but girl names were slightly more difficult.
We’re TTC but we’ve been talking about baby names since about 6 months into our relationship. Can’t have me without talking about names - I’m obsessed!
My situation might be a little different, as our child was unplanned and we had broken up before I even found out I was pregnant - but we started mentioning names to each other at around 24/25 weeks, but we didn’t have similar tastes at all and it seemed stressful, so we didn’t seriously get into it until probably 32ish weeks.
We still haven’t chosen middle names, and I don’t think we will until the baby is actually born. We don’t mind doing two middle names, so we may just each pick one if we can’t agree.
We started talking names before we were even married! [name]Way[/name] back when I said I wasn’t sure I would ever want to have kids, even! My husband is an unofficial [name]Berry[/name]. I am always asking his opinions when people post questions about “names like ____” and I swear, he is better at names than I am. He picked our daughter’s name after his brother stole the one I had dreamed of for our daughter! And honestly, I think he has better, or at least, Berrier taste than me. He hates “normal” names and says I’m boring when I suggest [name]Anna[/name] & the like. For any potential baby #2 he likes [name]Marigold[/name] or [name]Magnolia[/name] & [name]Ulysses[/name] or [name]Cliff[/name].
My one cousin had their top boy and girl names planned before the wedding. My other cousin has her top girls name picked about a year before the wedding. My mom picked her top girls name at about … 6 years . It was set in stone.
I think anytime is a good time to discuss names, however I am superstitious. I might wait at least for the first three monthes (when most miscarriages happen)before discussing names and certainly before locking one down. I wish you nothing but the best! Good Luck!
My husband also hates to talk about names. We actually chose our son’s name many years ago, though. My husband was reading [name]Anna[/name] Karenina and at some point said, “Huh. [name]Levin[/name]. I really like that name.” Since he never brings up names, I jumped on it.
We needed a list of possibilities though, so I made a google document that I shared with him. I listed names that I liked and he could add names he liked. We could also both cross out names, but IF we crossed out a name, we had to note why. Example: [name]Seraphina[/name]- NO- it makes me think of Aquafina, that stupid bottled water. It was very helpful not to discuss names in person, and it was also very helpful to require an explanation for rejection.
He would not agree to look at this until our homestudy was approved. But then he got into it. I doubt I will be able to convince him to talk about names again until we get to this point again. Though recently, out of the blue, he brought up [name]Eleanor[/name] as a name he really likes. So we will probably end up using it.
[name]Rowan[/name]'s name was chosen long before I even got pregnant so our conversation consisted of “When we have a daughter, her name will be [name]Rowan[/name]. K?” Luckily, he loved the name already because he is an [name]Anne[/name] [name]Rice[/name] fan (ugh, not the reason I loved it) but if he had said no… her name would still be [name]Rowan[/name].
He is annoying with names. I can get him to talk about names if the discussion branches off from another topic such as history, ancient civilizations, [name]Joss[/name] Whedon characters, etc… and I can ask him “Hey, do you like the name _____?” and he will say yes or no. End of discussion. But when it comes down to it, we have very similar naming tastes and hardly ever totally disagree. He’s kind of wishy-washy actually, it was so irritating trying to choose [name]Rowan[/name]'s middle name when he only said “Eh, whatever you like” or “Yeah sure, I guess” with all my suggestions.
We casually talk about names for the next child, but I will wait until I actually get pregnant to start driving him crazy. Haha
With our eldest about 10 minutes after we found out I was pregnant I told him “I think it’s a girl and if it is her name is [name]Elizabeth[/name].” I didn’t even give him a choice! He did choose her middle name though.
With our second we ended up arguing anytime we talked about names, so she wasn’t named until after she was born.
This baby we talked about it before I was pregnant, after having a miscarriage last year it almost felt like bad luck to make any decisions though. If it’s a boy I think our choice is set, if it’s a girl I think we could find something I love more but for now we agree at least.
Despite being a obsessive nameholic since age 7 and having long (loooooong) pre-pregnancy name lists, I became weirdly disinterested in names while I was pregnant. It wasn’t until I was about 6 months along that I accepted the idea that he wasn’t going to come out wearing a name tag, so it was time to get serious.
The first time round I think we started talking names around the end of my first trimester. This time we’re talking names and we’re still TTC My DH is much happier to talk about names this time, I think one pregnancy was enough to get him used to the idea that baby names are a major fascination for me.
We have been discussing names for children ever since we said “I love you”. At that point we knew we would get married and we are both family oriented so I couldn’t wait to start discussing possibilities with him! I’ve had names picked out since I was young and surprisingly he has had ideas for children for a long time as well. He’s a bit more reserved than I am. If I really like a name that he doesn’t like I have to explain my reasoning and he usually comes around (except when the name [name]Eleanor[/name] came up, he said no “old lady” names, I think it’s beautiful). He’s usually pretty open for discussion when I bring a name up, but I think he is waiting until we actually conceive to get serious about it, which I understand. I’m just a planner…
Congratulations on your pregnancy and good luck finding the perfect name!
I’m glad I’m not the only one with a name-reluctant husband hehe
I think it makes a lot of sense that there would two prevalent scenarios for name-fan Berries, either the partner who’s not into it and resists discussing (I wonder how many of them are intimidated??), or the partner who’s into it and therefore you’ve been talking about it for ages!
I held on to a childhood favorite for a boy until about a year ago, and we had agreed on it long long ago. Now we’re at square one! As it turns out, his concern is mostly with choosing a name, labeling the child, then having a miscarriage and not being able to use that name in the future. I told him that especially since we’re not finding out the gender, I don’t want to choose a name. I want to go in with a list of 3 or so top names for each gender, and choose after the birth. That he could get more on board with.
We had a bit of a miscarriage scare that just turned out to be our OB dating us wrong, and now we’re in the ‘under 5% risk’ category. Talking about tangibles makes me more calm, where it stresses him out… he just wants to file it away as ‘everything is fine, one day at a time’ but I need to look at baby stuff to concentrate on the promise of a baby at the end of the tunnel in order to worry less about complications. Once we start telling friends maybe I’ll find a buddy to talk about the specifics with so that my stress doesn’t conflict with his stress!
I made him take a couple of those “what’s your naming style?” quizzes last night, and he’s pretty firmly in “classic” with a lean toward green/hippie names. I, conversely, love obscure ancient-sounding names. Oof we’re gonna struggle!
My DH is much happier to talk about names this time, I think one pregnancy was enough to get him used to the idea that baby names are a major fascination for me.
hehe