Thursday, April 9, 2009

The Name Game

It was always a girlish dream of mine to sit around with my husband and discuss baby names. (You know, girls are forever discussing these kinds of things—like wedding colors, for instance.)


That dream ended shortly after Dave and I got married.

While there are loads of things that Dave and I enjoy discussing, it became obvious very fast that naming our future children—especially those who would be female—was not going to be one of them. Conversations went something like this:

Her: What about Madeline*?
Him: No! That sounds so pretentious.
Her: Oh! I know! Sylvia*! I love the name Sylvia!
Him: That makes me think of an old lady. . . Hey! How about Prometheus!
Her: Dave! That's not even a girl's name!
Him: Promethia?
Her: Dave!
Him: You know what I think is a cool name? Magor-mis-abib! It means "Fear on every side."
Her: ::Stunned silence::

So we stopped talking about it—until it became absolutely necessary. In fact, I decided I wasn't even going to bring up the subject until we knew whether we were having a girl or boy—to cut down on the discussion as much as possible.

After we found out we were having a little girl, my mission could not be put off any longer. I had us both sit down and write a list of at least 10 names that we both liked. (Dave ended up with 8, and I ended up with 15, but it was a good start.) It was a surprising success for two reasons: 1) The name Magor-mis-abib did not appear on either list, and 2) we actually had quite a few names that we both liked!

In case you're interested, here they are (in no particular order). We're going to keep thinking about them until Baby Talbert actually makes her appearance. Please feel free to comment on them or give us other suggestions!

Possible first names:
Evelyn
Chloe
Fiona
Katherine (to be called Kate)
Pheobe
Sophia

Possible middle names:
Marie (my middle name)
Elizabeth

We'll see what actually happens come June (or July).

Desiree

* I apologize if this is your name. Please know that I love your name. It would have been one of my first choices!

4 comments:

Ellen said...

After having to name 4 children, it amazes me that naming a child can be such a hard task to do. As you had, I had a list of names from very early on that I wanted to use in the event that I had children. It was quite a shock to me that my very laid back husband had very strong opinions about the names of his child(ren). I'm impressed that you 2 came up with a few that you both liked!

For what it's worth, I like both of your middle name choices. My middle name (and Lydia's) is Marie and Sarah's middle name is Elisabeth.

Being a traditionalist, my vote goes with Katherine (Kate). That name fell on my list, but alas, did not fall on Dave's. Glad you had better success. :o)

BTW: I'm still waiting to see your "pregnant picture."

Unknown said...

I love the last three. :)
I can TOTALLY hear this conversation happening.

Will said...

I vote for Phoebe Marie Talbert. And I will be offended if you don't take my advice.
JUST KIDDING!

Alison

Anonymous said...

I vote for Chloe Marie or Katherine Elizabeth. (Where did Fiona come from?)
Love, Mom W