We’ve been pretty much decided about baby names for months and months (and, no, I’m not sharing just yet), but today, for the second time this pregnancy, I saw a baby announcement in the local newspaper with our girl name. Gah! Today’s baby, thankfully, lives far, far to the south of us and the picture was in the paper only because her mother is originally from here, but still, it’s almost enough to make me switch to our second choice. I can’t explain why it matters so much to me, but I really prefer for my kids to be the only ones around with their names (while still giving them names that are actually names, you know — I’m a stickler about that, too). In this case, it’s not so much that I worry about two other babies having the same name as my baby, but that I fear a new trend is in the making and ten years from now my fill-in-the-blank will be lost in a sea of other fill-in-the-blanks. Seriously, somebody needs to talk me down here.
— * * * * * —
Inte nu igen!
December 8, 2010
I’m not talkin you down! I always was an Ashley lost in a sea of Ashley’s! I was always Ashley H. And from the looks of it, you’ve already done a great job naming your kids!
That happened with Evan, not other kids named Evan, but it was easy to spell and was a name and voila, I have him and suddenly they pop up everywhere. Jon was a good one though, in 4 schools we’ve only ever had one other Jon. Even though it is a name, not a ton of people now use it.
It’ll all be ok, Evan is not scarred for life b/c he has to be Evan P. I promise :).
I can tell you I was a little annoyed when we met the other Beverly in Cottonwood. It was even worse that you two became friends! She was a nice little girl, it was just that the name was unusual and to have two in such a small town. I wasn’t very annoyed and I wasn’t annoyed for long.
I also want a name that’s not too common (though perhaps not as exotic as your choices, I’m thinking mostly of Brynja here 🙂
But on the other hand I have never minded being Anna, almost the most common name in Sweden, so…
Just don’t do a common name with an uncommon spelling. I’ll admit it is nice to be a little different, but geesh, no one EVER spells my name right. (No one gets Jeff’s name right either…JeffERy). We refused to give our kids names with weird spellings.
Ashley — You reminded me of the class behind me in high school … there were eight Jennifers, in a class of less than one hundred kids. That means that something like 20% of the girls had the same name. :/
Anna P. — Had we still lived in the States, I would have been right there with you in the Evan crowd. I LOVE that name, and tried to talk Olof into using it, but it just doesn’t work so well over here. I think Jon is the perfect kind of name, for the reasons you said — it’s a real name, familiar to everyone, but not overused at all.
Mom — At the time I think I thought it was neat that she and I had the same name, but a few years later it would have bugged the hell out of me! I got through all of high school and college being the only Beverly, and it spoiled me for situations like these!
Anna in Sweden — Interestingly, the baby in the announcement from the other day had an older sister whose name was the same as the one you said once before was *your* girl name. I thought of you immediately, because that’s not a common one, either. No worries, though — the family lives in Mora, so not too close to either one of us! 😉
Nik — That’s good advice for all parents! I’m fussy about spelling as well, so you should approve, at least on that score, of the names we choose. I remember once, when I worked at the public library in Nampa, we got an application from a girl named something like “Ayricah” and I had to sound it out a time or two before I realized it was just “Erica.” Sheesh!
Is that Isolde? So I revealed that to you at some stage? 🙂
Are you still keen on Enzo by the way?
I like Dante and Amadeus but Peter has vetoed them and now especially Dante is getting popular so probably too common for you guys. If you want unusual girl names, a colleague of mine picked Edda for her daughter (not Hedda but Edda). Old Norse name as Brynja.
It was Isolde! Ezra was actually the name I loved, but I really like Enzo as well. Sadly, Olof isn’t really on board for either. Sigh …
Ooh, Edda … Olof might actually go for that!
Our second choice girl name right now is Agda, but Olof has started singing “Hönan Agda” now and says he’s not sure he can get it out of his head. Grrr. I don’t know if you guys are like us, but it seems that basically I suggest all the names, and he just sits back and vetoes. Ugh.
We have friends who just got a chihuhua called Agda… I think you should go for Edda instea! 🙂
My friend’s daughter is Elvina which is also nice. First time I heard of it but have since realised it’s not new or that uncommon. Not in top 100 though http://svenskanamn.alltforforaldrar.se/visa/Elvina
A colleague of mine named their daughter Skayla (he’s Swedish and she’s half English, half Swedish).
Peter also, if not vetoes, but is sceptical about most names too so it will probably end up being the names we’ve had for a while 🙂
Although I’ve discovered that my name was not as unusual as I thought, I was the only one I knew growing up. And I hated it! I never got one of those personalized bike license plates. You cannot imagine how much I coveted one, knowing it would never be. Everyone also mispronounces, mis-hears or misspells it.
Basically, either side has it’s downfalls.
My daughter has a very common name (there’s another one at her daycare!) and my son has an uncommon one. In the end I decided that choosing the name I liked and that had meaning for me was more important that whether it was too common or not.
This will likely be a terrific blog, would you be interested in performing an interview about just how you developed it? If so e-mail me!
I am glad for writing to make you know of the extraordinary discovery my friend’s child developed visiting your blog. She came to understand such a lot of pieces, which included how it is like to have an amazing coaching character to have most people quite simply completely grasp several tricky things. You actually surpassed visitors’ expectations. Many thanks for producing such beneficial, trustworthy, informative and as well as unique thoughts on the topic to Emily.
Such a great post, thank you for sharing! I remember talking with you about your birthday resolutions last year so great to learn about your thoughts this year.