Name Napping is So Wrong, But I Got Nothin’
Major Strasser is a Major Nazi
I know from that stupidly catchy viral “Pregnant Women are Smug” song that pregnant women don’t usually share the names they’ve chosen for their babies.
That may be a smug choice, sure, but I think I get it now. You let the name cat out of the bag, and everyone judges the cat, they swing the cat around by the tail, they project their own issues onto the cat and now you want to put the whole incident in your emotional litter box and bury it so you can still like the cat as much as you used to.
And of course there is the danger of getting name napped. My friends just had a baby boy and named it Laszlo, and I am madly in love with that name. It’s Hungarian, as am I. Victor Laszlo is a character in the movie “Casablanca,” and my surname is also featured in that film. Who doesn’t remember the line, “Major Strasser has been shot. Round up the usual suspects?” Okay, that Strasser dude was a Nazi, but I still enjoy the classic movie name tie-in, and when you’re looking for magical name signs, anything seems to scream, “This is the one.”
Still, you don’t nap a name.
So we had to let Laszlo go, like Bogey did. And now I have four more months to come up with something.
The first dozen people we told we were thinking of the name “James” were dazzled. “It’s classy and simple,” they said, “It’s not like one of these new fangled Jayden, Aiden, Caden names,” they added. So James shot to the top of the list, but if you tell enough people, someone is going to hate on your name, which is what happened when a former colleague told me that anyone named James would become Jim, and there was nothing I could do about it. Jim. Jims are nice people, they coach girls’ soccer without inappropriately touching anyone, they do your taxes without massaging the numbers too much, they walk your dog when you have to leave town suddenly. I like Jims. I just don’t want one.
The “Jim hater” loved our only other name option so far: Shane.
This here is Shane.
After we got pregnant, we happened to go to the cell phone store and the guy who helped us had a shiny blue nametag with that moniker. And it seemed right with my husband’s crazy long, consonant rich Polish name. Shane would ride into kindergarten like a Polish cowboy. And all Shanes are hot. But so are Gabes. And Nates. And most Erics.
Once you rule out any names of ex-boyfriends, or names you would be napping from your immediate circle, or names recently used by celebrity moms or names you associate with high school bullies or former evil bosses, the well runs a bit dry. Trust me, when it comes to girl names, the well of adorably androgynous designations bubbles over, but this boy thing is tough.
I’ve been thinking that most parents have a few names in the running before choosing the one. What happens to those perfectly good runner-up names? Can I have them? If you loved your second choice but didn’t use it and feel it shouldn’t go to waste, or if you thought of it only after you screwed your kid with an average name, help a mom-to-be out with a name-me-down you no longer need.
Let me preface by saying i am a total non-breeder. That being said i do have some male names i am fond of. Feel free to use them or scoff, as you see fit. i think they are in order of preference, and i too see the religious undertone, which is amusing, because i am sooo not.
Cody
Elijah
Jonah
Zach
Loving the blog, thanks to Lynn and Alex for turning me on to it.
Good luck!
I am the proud mother of 6 month old Ewan. I was cursed with a name that was extremely popular and did not want to have my son suffer the same fate. The goal we had was unusual, but not wierd. We knew we wanted a Scottish/Gaelic type name, it completes the theme of the Scottish wedding and honeymoon! The name I really wanted though, which my husband vetoed based on the popularity of Reese Witherspoon, is Rhys. Welsh. I also liked Rowan, Gareth, and Alaistair.
My 5 kids all have Irish names. I just liked one for the first, and then felt like I had to keep it going. My sons are Conor, Brennan and Liam. The ones I didn’t get to use that I liked are:
Declan
Colm
Eamon
Ciaran
I also like Stewart.
(My daughters are Erin and Ciara).
My wife and I went crazy trying to pick names for our first child. We had a similar experience to yours – floating names to each other only to have them shot down either by us or by others. We settled tentatively on “Jack”. When our son was born, we took one look at him and both agreed he was not a “Jack.” I left the delivery room to get some sleep and returned the next morning. I took another look at him and a name came to me out of the blue: “Giancarlo.” He’s now 9 and his name has always fit him like a glove. Interestingly, neither one of us is Italian. The ex-post rationale we cooked up is that Dad’s ancestors were Russian Jews and Mom’s folks were all from Ecuador. Italy is the geographical mid-point. Giancarlo also worked well for us because we have a one-syllable last name.
So, why not wait and see? It worked for us. When people pestered us for the name during our “Jack” phase (when we were loath to give out “Jack” in fear of it getting shot down), I had a canned answer: I would answer “Regis” with a straight face. This was at the height of “Millionaire” mania. It was fun to see people momentarily wince and then try to gauge if we were putting them on.
I love that story. And that name.
Shane sounds good to me, T. After reading all the replies, I’d recommend….not reading all of the replies. Best of luck and keep up the great writing!
First off I totally agree with you… there are sooo many adorable girl names. Boy names are so much more difficult to pick from. It’s not fair! My boyfriend has 2 girls from his previous marriage and when we found out we were pregnant he wanted it to be a boy soooo bad. His family has a tradition of “A” names. His name is Aric (eric). Brothers Alan & Alfred. grandchildren names: Alyssa, Arianna, Alan, Amia, Aaron and now my son Aric. At first i didn’t really care for the name. I loved his spelling but never liked the name Eric. But when I saw how excited he was that it was a boy (he literally cried when we found out and I didn’t) I just had to give that to him. He wanted his son to be named after him so much. Not necessarily a Jr. because he hates his middle name, but he wanted Aric to be the name. He tried convincing me throughout my whole pregnancy but I never gave in. We were still debating the name up until the very last minute when they handed us the paperwork at the hospital. I agree with the other people who are telling you to go with whatever name you like!! I know a few james and have never called either of them jim or jimmy. You can control what everyone calls him. here are some of my runner ups:
-Arin
-Alijah (used that one as his middle name)
-Ethan
-Kenneth
-Ryan
-Adam (boyfriend hated it)
-Keith
-Andrew
How about Blaise?
Here’s one for you…’Seven’…..maybe that’s supposed to be a girls name.
My husband seriously proposed the following boy “names” for our first child (fortunately I was able to veto them at 20 weeks thanks to the ultrasound):
–Zero (yes, it’s technically a name, but seriously?)
–Commander Phoenix (kind of a play on celeb-u-baby names Moxie Crimefighter and Pilot Inspector)
For our second child he does get credit for coming up with a great but unusable name: Disaster Unwieldy.
Turns out our second baby really is a Disaster Unwieldy, but we named her Josie.
For a boy, I liked/he rejected:
Judah
Jude
Jonah (had a J thing to name her for my dad)
Colm
Collin
I personally found it very surreal to name a human being. It felt so artificial to call this little blob by a name I basically made up. So I discovered that I am an inveterate nicknamer and my 13 month old still doesn’t really know her name because we’ve called her so many silly nicknames!
Good luck. And P.S. I wish you had been blogging when I was pregnant, I still love it, but I would have appreciated it even more then!
Go with Laszlo if you really love it, because who knows if you’ll still be friends with these people in a few years…life is unpredictable! Name napping is more of a crime if it occurs amongst family members, I think. Btw, the boy name we had in reserve for our baby girl due in 3 weeks would’ve been Griffin. We already have a Zach, and it’s a perfect fit for his extra-long hyphenated last name.
Travis, Jordan and Kai (rhymes with “hi”) are all men that mean a great deal to me, and happen to have awesome names. No nickname issues, although Travis is sometimes shortened to “Trav” or “T-bag” but that is done by choice. Go figure.
Hi, we have 3 daughters so we never had the chance to use the boy names we picked out so help yourself to them…
Greydin & Gryphon
In keeping with the Casablanca theme, you can name him Victor Laszlo.
I am going to pass on to you a name I held dear for a good 15 years before I was overruled TWICE. I love the name Roland. It’s a solid, strong name. It’s a name you don’t hear too often. It’s a name that cannot be shortened without being ridiculous.
go with shane.. it’s your gut instinct and i agree, shane’s are always good looking (and very smart in my experiences with them). I also like:
ethan
ian
collin
nate/nathaniel
dylan
and there’s always “dominick”
which can shorten to nick
Hello T,
Ah … the name dilema … the very first *true* parenting crisis. You must pick from thin air, the single most fundamental building block of your child-to-be’s personality and perhaps fortune. Anyone who doubts this … I merely say … if that isn’t true, how come everyone knows what you mean and perhaps has even toyed with their own imaginary stripper name. That’s not to say that every Candy or Tiffany is a stripper, but it merely means that her parents and important others probably made a hard turn to the starboard side to keep them away from the club (please, any JD, MD or PhD Candy’s or Tiffany’s will hopefully have a sense of humor to go with their smartie pants brain).
The only “advice” I ever give to other “namers” is … remember first this ‘name’ has to get through a fourth grade lunchroom and secondly, this ‘name’ will need to appear on a resume one day and not be looked over because they couldn’t pronounce it, couldn’t imagine a Dixie as their legal counsel or was rejected because too much water went over that bridge … (ie Adolf probably isn’t going to gain a following for a few more decades, so you may want to think about nixing famous serial killers for $500 in the name game).
Lastly, the reason why it’s always good to have a name and a spare is because it can happen that your solidly chosen name turns out to be worthless on “game day” … My younger daughter was “Lauren” from the day a moronic tech accidently overlooked the three giant red stickers all over my Amnio folder that said “No Sex INFO wanted” I never even gave a name another thought (I had my number one girls name ripped from my list of possibilities when I married a Brown – I wanted a Molly so bad, I’d imagined her my whole life but back to paragraph one I just couldn’t saddle her with “Molly Brown”) … But when she was born I took one look at her and thought “who the heck are you ??” the nurse said “whats her name” … and after a really akward pause I stammered out AAALLexandra ??? The nurse looked at me with a mixture of surprise and confusion – and said … YOUR JUST MAKING that up aren’t you ?? I sheepishly had to say “yep …” I violated parent rule 1a. Always, Always have a backup.
Maybe you’ll get lucky and your boy will name himself – that’s what happened with my first daughter – prior to finding out I was pregnant, I kept having a very, very, very vivid dream, in the dream I was napping on my couch when there was a knock at the door, in my dream I answered it and there was this beautiful tiny dark hair girl who said “Hi I’m Katie – I’m coming to live with you”. When the pregnancy test turned up positive, I said to my dear sweet ex-hubby, well – this must be Katie coming to live with us. True dat.
I love Shane and James (and I agree that if your son ‘sees’ himself as a James, the name will stick – I know two), but then I totally prefer short masculine names for guys – showing my age I guess.
If your last name is very long, go for a short first name. (That’s my Dad’s theory.) Also, it’s a good idea (as you’ve done) not to pick a name you hate the nickname for – e.g. Don’t go James if you don’t like Jim (or whatever.)
Maybe try the one syllable names. If you liked James, what about Jay? There is literally no nicknaming possible!
Hello T. I was listening the other day when your former coworker crapped on James. My mind was blown for a couple of reasons during that episode. The first was because of Bryan, and the second was because my name is James David and I go by JD. I’m sure that by now James is off the table, but if I may, I would like to offer an observation. The only people that try to push Jim on James’ are old timers (most of which will be dead by the time your son will have to deal with this) and other Jims (they want you to join their little “Jim club”). James is strong and it requires only the slightest bit of momentum to successfully deflect Jim.
I recently found out that my husband has had his boys name picked out since he was a little boy, Noah. (I wasn’t aware little boys played this game either, ironically I’ve hardly thought about my future childrens’ names)
I also like:
Liam
Clint
Erik
Andrew
Good luck!!
SHANE! I love it! You shouldn’t overthink it – too late, LOL!!!!!!!!!! But Shane is nice, and like Adam (I think) said, it’s one syllable. It works with the long last name.
My friend Tracy’s wife bumped his first choice, but I love it — Kyd. Kyd is an awesome name. Kyd Strasser, Kyd Wojciehowicz. They both work. I’m just sayin’
Teresa,
When we first got pregnant, I vetoed a list of completely respectable boy names as there was just too much repetition already (We’re Italian so every first son was named after the grandfather/father/uncle. The result was a minimum of 3 “John”s in each generation). Now, it is a non-issue since we are having a girl.
John
Joseph
Leonard
Bernard
Carl
James
Owen
William (Bill)
We have decided not to saddle our little one with a name until we get to see her. One way to deal with the incessant question is to tell to people, “We haven’t decided.” If pushed for those name options, say, “We are thinking James or Shane but will just have to wait and see what fits him.” It usually works to end the conversation.
Good Luck!
-Shauna
I like Jake, Ryan, Graham … I’ve always loved the Irish name Declan too and I think Shane is a good one as well.
Good luck deciding!
Hey teresa
I am 37 weeks and I am having a baby girl. But before we knew what we were having my boyfriend and I were gunna name our boy either
isreal
kaygan
ezra
good luck! btw we decided to name our little girl claire!
Hi Teresa — Great post. I’d love to run it as a guest blog on nameberry. We’d link back to you. Let me know if you’re interested. Thanks, Pam
My last name was Miller and I married a Borowiec. Nothing sounds good with an ick on the end. It took months of trying every name, word, household item, etc. We went with Evan so he had the choice of being a sweet little bookworm or a linebacker. One syllable firsts with eastern bloc surnames sound like prison guards or plumbers names. Jamie is an awesome James nickname and you can enforce it from birth. I know a lot of water polo players named Jamie.
Hey T,
Here a tip from Sensei Adam on naming your baby:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uKvYLCUWX4&feature=related
I would go with Sam.
Take Care.
Wyatt
Luke
Sanford
Brennan
Owen
Axel
Vance
Xavier
Austin
Brett
Jared
Lance
I’ve been saving the boy name: Korgan
…but I doubt I’ll be having any kids anytime soon. So you can have it if you like it.
I had a dream where I was going to name my baby: Orion
I kind of like that one too.
But you’re right, boy names are much harder :/
I haven’t given too much thought to names for any children I might have in future, however should I have any, one will have ‘Danger’ as their middle name. Awesome!
Gus
Stosh
2 things:
My best friend is named James, and has 99% of the time successfully avoided being called Jim.
As a girl with an androgynous name, let me say that it’s not so much adorable as annoying. [Androgynous and tricksy to spell? Spare the child! Androgynous and tricksy to spell *and* rhymes with your mother's name (in my case, Jane, sometimes Janey)? Cruel.]
We are going with Zane for our future rock star (or president… whatever as long as he’s rich enough to support us some day). Our runners-up were: Ian, Wade, and Zander (although that fell off the radar pretty quickly). I can’t wait to hear what you decide. You better share!!!
I think you like the name Laszlo just use it. WTF ya know? I mean, who cares, I know a lot of other Teresa’s and Christine’s. Though I understand, but you should try to spend more time worrying less about what other people think. You are an adult, you are not in high school any longer!
Smiles and hugs
Hi T,
I’m 2 weeks out from my due date and 3D ultrasound has confirmed it’s a girl. I picked a boy name before I knew the gender of my baby though because for some reason I was just sure it was a boy. If she was a he, he would have been Charles. I think it’s classy and timeless. Also, if it is going to get shortened beyond your control, who doesn’t love a Charlie? I’m a little sad I’m not going to get to use it, to be honest! It’s kind of similar to your James idea, except Charlie is a lot better than Jim.
Teresa, I had one week to choose a boys name (we didn’t know the sex until then). It was between David and Daniel and we chose Daniel. I actually liked the name Camden, (it’s used by no one we know)but my husband said it was a street in Los Angeles.
We had a girl, but here are some of our favorite boy names:
Zach
Logan
Jackson
Caleb
I never got to use Blake. I never will. Love that name.
And I know what you mean. Don’t let the name cat out of the bag. Besides letting people crap all over it, you also run the risk of people getting attached to it, and you have the right to change your mind when you meet the little cherub!
At this point I don’t even like to announce what’s for dinner until it’s on the table. I don’t need to hear complaints while I am slicing green peppers, thanks.
I also love the name Ian.
BTW-You are one of the main reasons I am sitting at home today from having an IVF transfer
) Had a similar childhood to you and Adam…never sounded good until you came along.
Oliver
Felix
Nico
Elliott
Max
those were our runner-ups.
One other thing. The “Jim hater” named his kid Santino and the boy is called Sonny. I love the guy and all but do you really want his advice on naming a child? I’m just ask’n s’all.
I was going to TELL you to name the kid Trevor (but that’s just for my son, who would never hurt a soul, who is serving a bit of time for the evil crime of selling weed.)
My second son is named Timothy but that wasn’t my choice (my twin sister had a Timothy six months earlier.) I wanted to name him Cory.
I think Shane is a great name, James could work fine what about Zach (it’s a great short name and if the boy achieves lofty things the full name of Zachary gives him even more credibility.)
Hey, you asked.
Oh baby names. If I wasn’t falling in love with your blog already, I am now. I have a Jim, he’s my husband. And while I love the name James, he is Jim and dear god he was (and to some people still is) a Jimmy. Shanes are ALWAYS hot. You should email swistle, at swistle baby names, she’s the greatest.
How about naming your boy one of these:
Cabot
Darshan
Finbar
Herget
Lazare
Ramsden
I love the name Caleb, but my husband boycotted it…so that was my runner up. I’m currently pregnant with a baby boy also, and the name we’re going with is Trevor. I think both are great names!
First, I miss hearing your voice every morning so DAMN much!
Also, I don’t mind you stealing any of the names I have selected. Please feel free. I am a llittle old school as I too do not like all of the new fandangled names that have come about.
Miles, Jack (not Jackson) Shane and Gavin. I think if you want a child’s name to be James, not Jim, you must be consistent with saying it as such that’s all. My husband’s name is Allen, everyone calls him Allen. Unfortunately, he hated Allen so he calls himself Al.
Go for what you want T!
Take care,
Jan
I also love the name Ian.
BTW-You are one of the main reasons I am sitting at home today from having an IVF transfer
) Had a similar childhood to you and Adam…never sounded good until you came along.
Sigmund! BTW The Seamonster: good name for T’s V.
I completely disagree that James is necessarily shortened to Jim. But my runner-up boy names are: Robert, Michael, Graham, Kenneth, and Miles. I’m completely in love with the name Graham, but it’s my husband’s name and he doesn’t want a junior. =(
If you want to keep your hungarian heritage involved, how about Belus, or Bela (same name) It’s a short name for the hungarian Albert, So it’s basically “Bert,” but Laszlo means Leslie. I understand too fruity.
in Italian “Bella” means Beautiful.
The greatest Dracula, Bela Lugosi.
You love gymnastics, “Bela Karolyi”
This was our list and we picked one of them for our now 6-year old son, but I’m not telling which. We were also dealing with a long Polish last name:
Jet
Spider
Scorpius
Ringo
Rocket
Vladimir
Spock
Mickey
I also agree that you must never reveal your name until it’s a done deal!
Good luck!
My wife and I had many boys names we agreed on and then found we were having a girl. Here are some: Mitchell, Parker, Bryce, Logan, Riley, and Jack. Have you and your husband considered trimming down that new last name of yours? Peace!