Naming Baby

I love having a large extended family. I have fond memories of all of my cousins and enjoy seeing them whenever we can.



It can, however, make naming baby, a tough thing.



Micah and I agree on some principals of selecting this child's name. It must be classic, spelled in the "normal" format and not in the top 10 list for baby names. Seems easy right?



Just a few weeks ago though, as we were going through names I had to start elminiating ones he would throw out because they've 1)been used already by children in my family or 2)are my cousins names.



When you consider that my Aunts and Uncles must have had the same guidelines as Micah and I do for naming children and they have far more children than my mother did, well, it can get interesting.



Names that I can't use for boys: Ethan, Justin, Nathan, John, Mark, Ryan, Eric, Michael, Jonathan, Aaron, Gregory, Larry, Clint, Luke, Malachi, Justus, Joshua, Isaiah, Elijah and Timothy.



Names that I can't use for girls: Jennifer, Jody (Jodi), Megan, Sofia, Mariella, Michelle, Elisa, Heidi, Janene, Nadene, and Serephina.



Now that's ONLY on from my mothers family. Add to that names from my fathers family and from Micah's family and our list is becoming a very short list without any additional input from us.



Other names for boys we can't use: Phillip, Clayton, Christopher, Michael (again), Andrew, Matthew, Myles and Harvey.



For girls: Rebecca, Jasmine, Michaela, Heather, Susan, Amy, Sara, Nancy, Leslie, Leslie, Karen, Paloma, Melanie, Donna and Judy.



Don't even get me started on names of friends of their children because then we're completely out of names essentially.



The naming of a child is one of the greatest gifts we as parents can give a child and it has to be meaningful. A name can shape a future and give impressions without that child ever opening it's mouth. It is something that (hopefully) the child will carry with them the rest of their lives. We want it to be special. We want it to have meaning. And we don't want everyone else to have it too.



We have what we think are some tentative names. I'm not up to sharing them JUST yet. But I will, hopefully once we find out what we are having.