You know those couples interviewed in design magazines who are always praising each other for their “excellent aesthetic” and “good eye”? Yeah, that is SO not my husband and me. We’ve argued over almost every piece of furniture we’ve ever brought into our house, and we’re still in a standoff (going on six months now) about where to hang a piece of artwork.
So before we even found out I was pregnant with our first child, we decided to start arguing over baby names, knowing it would probably take us years to settle on something we both liked. One of us loves family names and more traditional-sounding but rarely used names like Amos or Louise. One of us has a much harder time pinning down his criteria, but generally has a reason to hate every name. Thankfully, we agree on the following criteria:
1. The name must work equally well for a CEO or an artist.
2. No weird spellings. We are both irrationally annoyed by the random -y’s and -gh’s that seem to be inserted in any number of names to make them quirky and different.
I think our issues stem from the fact that we are both pretty weird and quirky people. We joke all the time that we must stay together forever not just because we promised to, but also because breaking in another person to deal with our individual quirks would just be too darn hard and not worth it. But we are also, in some ways, beyond conventional. We married young. We are quickly on the route to 2.5 kids in a three-bedroom house, with professional jobs and community involvement to boot. We are beyond stereotypical in some ways.
So how do you find a name that works whether your children grow up to be mathematicians or powerful business leaders or sculptors or elementary school teachers? It’s hard. For us, we don’t bother discussing names until the 20-week anatomy scan. It cuts the arguments in half. Then we discuss it relentlessly and each assign a number ranking to how much we love or hate a name. (I’m an 8 on Amos, for what’s it worth. My husband is a 3.) And then we each get three no-arguing-allowed vetoes. And we tend to ignore anyone else’s feedback on our choices.
It’s not a simple process. But, for us, it’s the only way!
What about you? Was choosing a name difficult or easy? What’s the name you loved that your spouse rejected?
