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Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Baby Boy B_____ema

Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Brittany writes:
We are having our first baby, due September 27th and we are thrilled! My husband and I know we are very picky and view naming our child as a huge responsibility (and one we're so happy to have). We quietly turn up our noses at pretty much every suggestion we've received from friends & family. That said, at least we're sort of on the same page about what we're looking for. I'm sure you've heard this before, but we want something on the less common side that isn't too far 'out there'. Even if I like a name on the top 10 list, I can't stand the thought of naming my child the same name as his future classmates. Maybe this is because I have a very trendy name from back in my day. Even though we're both picky, I seem to be the one suggesting name options and my husband is the one giving the veto vote. Our last name is a long dutch name that starts with a B and ends with -ema. We both really like the name Jack (my husbands favorite author is Jack Kerouac) and I find it adorable for all ages. Although it doesn't meet our criteria for uncommon, and my husband would prefer it as a middle. But we find it timeless. We've seemed to have been drawn to Irish/Gaelic names such as Kaelan ( I love names with consecutive vowels) but due to the unsettling trend of the name being given to GIRLS these days, we've decided a strong 'no' against it. Side note: for a girl possibly someday, Eowyn, Aeris or Charlotte. Here is the short list of the few we've tossed around:
Kaelan (the girly issue)
Jasper/Jesper (vintage, but I'm worried about a strong Twilight association)
Grayson (my husband's one suggestion that I find utterly boring! "son of gray haired man")
Jax (I LOVE this name, but my husband give it a huge "no way")
Callen (soft 'a' sound... we both got kind of bored with it after a while)
Easton (hubby gave a big veto)
Alistar/Alistair or some variation (we're really drawn to it for some reason, but it's a little too..'much' to feel okay using)
Kai (recently found out an acquaintance is using this name, due within the same week)
Ellison
Alec (hubby vetoed)
Kael (too much like Kale greens?)
Jude/Judah (hubby vetoed)
Kellen (hubby vetoed)
Fin(n)ley/Fin(n)lay/Finn (the one name we both agree on, but can't seem to nail down what we really want out of it. I usually think one should be given the name that will be used, even if it is considered a "nickname", but I do like Finley as well as Finn so I think I could easily stand to use the full version and nickname in this situation. The issue then would be spelling. We considered whether or not we like just Finn by itself, but were never quite sure. So if he'll be called Finn much of the time should we spell the full version with one N or two? And Finley happens to be more popular in the US as a girls name, which bothers me because I want a strong masculine name. Although maybe I should just forget it because it seems to be strongly masculine in it's Irish origin. And what about the spelling Fin(n)lay. I've read that it's pronounced the same as Finley, but will it be forever mispronounced? And is that even true? And the biggest question of all, is do we even love it, or is it the 'best of the blah'?

As you can see we're pretty far from naming our son, despite being weeks from his due date! We're completely open to new suggestions beyond what we've listed!

At one point we thought meaning would be important to us, but I think we're past that due to the extreme difficulty we've had finding ANYthing decent.

And "no" to the name Jackson (even though it has Jack in it)

Can you help us?! And is there any hope?