Happy Sunday! I’m curious – did you find out the gender of your child/ren while you were expecting? With our first, I thought it would be fun not to know, but my husband insisted. (My aunt did, too.) With our second, I knew instantly that she was a girl. I can’t explain it, but I just knew. Still, my husband refused to finalize baby names until we saw the ultrasound results both time. I’ll admit that only having to figure out one name simpled things up for us.
We have friends who aren’t finding out for baby #2 – just like they didn’t find out for their firstborn. I’ll admit that I’m enjoying getting to toss around names for both genders.
Elsewhere online:
- Would you name your baby Boss? What if you’d already used Romeo, Valentino, Cassanova, and Duke?
- Zeffy’s post on thirteenth century feminine names was great. And wouldn’t Annora work well in 2012? Same goes for Ismay. P.S. Congrats on your one year blogoversary!
- Speaking of lists, Elea has a great round-up of surnames with feminine nicknames. I can imagine Aveley catching on.
- I think Hollis might be my favorite ends-in-s name. For Real spotted a Hollis Brielle … oh, and a Gideon Buck!
- Mer de Noms went looking for alternatives to Freya. She suggests Embla, a name I’ve heard one or twice before. That reminds me … I’ve never done a “getting to Emme” post. That’s a rich category …
- Can you imagine that instead of compromising with your partner, you just throw every name on the birth certificate? Nancy’s tale of Rose Mary Echo Silver Dollar. She was known as Silver, which was fitting for the daughter of a man who made his fortunes in the Colorado silver mines. The story ends sadly – dad lost his fortune and Silver died young. And yet, the name shimmers … in our era of Harper and Scarlett, I’m wondering if Silver might be wearable.
- Speaking of great sounds, less-than-appealing stories, Baby Name Pondering has Amity in the spotlight. But I think she’s right – despite the gruesome horror-story associations, I love the idea of Amity.
- We all know that Hello, My Name is Pabst is mostly a joke. I say mostly because the real kids profiled on the site have great names: Miles, Silas, Rose. It’s their lists that are wackadoodle. Lisa Milbrand’s review suggests that the book’s contents are mostly on the impossibly outlandish side, though she concedes that gems like Eames are mixed in with Linux and Matrix.
- Over at the Facebook page, Sarah is looking for a name for a little sister for Florence. What do you think? Clara, Beatrix, Emmeline, Olive, Petra, Estelle? So many great possibilities …
That’s all for this week. As always, thank you for reading – and have a great week!
I didn’t want to know the sex of the baby, but then we found out we were having twins. Hubby wouldn’t talk names seriously until my 20 week ultrasound. Sigh… But we still had the challenge of coming up with 2 names, and we didn’t tell anyone the names until the girls arrived, much to the frustration of some of my friends and family. I wanted the chance to change the names after we saw the girls, plus what’s the point of sending birth announcements if everyone already knows the names?
Silver to me leans more to the masculine side. All I can think of is the Lone Ranger and his sted “Hi Ho Silver!”
Boss leaves me speechless. I was going to say at that point your stuck with Don Juan or Lothario, but maybe Lancelot?
We did an amnio, so we knew we were having a boy. I liked cutting 50% of the names off my lists… but knowing so early and keeping it secret was nearly impossible. In a different world, I would have loved a delivery room surprise.
I recently read the excellent Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers (assassin nuns in medieval France!) Imagine a mash-up of Game of Thrones, Hunger Games and the 80’s movie Ladyhawke. I’m mentioning it because in the “Katniss” role, it features a young nun named Ismae.
Looovvvee the medieval names! We had to find out our baby’s sex, it was too overwhelming for me to pick two names!
Thank you, Abby! And thanks for always being so nice 🙂
Also, I feel somewhat vindicated by the fact that they considered Marie. Marie is my all tone favorite and it’s much maligned by name nerds. Boo! 😉
Marie is maligned by name nerds? Surely just as a middle, not a first! I personally think that both Marie and Maria are lovely.
well, I do see a lot of name nerds dislike Marie. But I like Marie definitely as a first, and sometimes as a middle. I never mind it as a middle, actually, it’s more did they pick the right first name for it? Maria is nice as well.
I hear so many say it’s hopelessly dated in a bad way. I think it’s because it’s been so overused as a middle but I think as a first it’s fresh and delightful, just as vintagey as Rose.
Speaking of Marie where did her entry disappear to?
Ismay and Miriel are lovely!
I know a Silver. She’s in her late twenties. I think it’s wearable. It reminds me of Saffron, which I vastly prefer to Scarlett or Harper.
I love Amity. Amity and Verity are two of my favourite feminine virtue names.
I definitely think Silver works as a name, although I don’t really think it’s my style.
Many of those thirteenth-century feminine names are fabulous (Miriel? Odelina? Yes, please!). Unfortunately, feminine names is not something we’re having an issue with this time.
We found out the gender when pregnant with our first because we wanted to know if coming up with a girl’s name was something we really had to worry about (it was). Then by the time we were expecting our second the laws had changed in the province and we were no longer allowed to find out the gender. It was ok though, since the main reason we’d wanted to know was for the name. We actually had an equally difficult coming up with a boy’s name and a girl’s name that time.
This time we’re in a new country and want to find out the gender again. The difference is that this time I want to have a name that I love picked out for either gender *before* we have the scan. Why? I still love the top two girl’s names we’d selected prior to Alaric’s birth, which makes me desire a girl. I’m pretty sure this one’s a boy, and want to have a name that I love ready if my suspicions are proved correct. I’m almost 100% certain that if I can come up with a boy’s name that I love and Mark agrees on then I won’t care what the gender is.
The problem is that so far Mark has been the one coming up with names and none of them are ones that I particularly like, let alone love. The couple of names I’ve managed to suggest get the veto from him as well. Each time it gets harder!
Fun to read the Rose post on the Pabst blog – even kind of strange because the family has a Rose like me and then also mentions liking the names of my two boys. Plus she also really likes Dorothy / Dot which is a favourite of mine too!
I think I like Silver. A lot more than Scarlett and Harper too.
My husband didn’t want to talk names until after the gender ultrasound either – which is not as fun, as then you can only talk one gender. We found out with our first two. Then because we already had a boy and a girl, we didn’t find out with our 3rd. It was fun to think about more possibilities. Though my husband got to name our 3rd and he picked a boy name and a girl name and then was done. I spent more time thinking about middle names though. And then we considered changing our girl name, that very last week. The weird thing though – is that you name a boy *and* a girl, but then only one of them arrives. I found that a little strange – to have a name for a girl and even a dress and a little blanket I made – but then to have a boy – who also had a name and a monogrammed shirt and a blanket. It was cool to have him be born though and be like “It’s George!!!” He was our only child that we named before he was born – we just didn’t know if he was George or Lucy.