I'm looking for some advice and hoping you can help me out.
I'm the mother of two beautiful girls. My eldest girl, Sofia, will be three in April and my youngest, Liliana, is 4 and a half months old. Within a few months of being pregnant with Sofia we chose her name and I have never regretted it despite the popularity of it.
It was an entirely different scenario with my youngest. Since my husband and I are both of Italian orgin, we wanted another Italian name, but this was not easy to find this time around. Alot of names were tossed due to negative associations or because they were already in the family. Fast forward to a few days before my due date and still no name. We decided on Giulietta.
However, right after I had the baby, I felt that the name was not right. My husband agreed to change it a month later. However, due to the pressure and not knowing what I really wanted, I chose another name I am not happy with. I was not happy with the name when we registered her but since my ocd was acting up my husband thought i would have doubts about any name.
Three and a half months later and I continue to have problems. I find it hard to say her name. In fact i try to avoid it if i can. I'm embarrassed to say her name when people ask me. I find that the name is too long and frilly for me as well as old fashioned. I don't even like hearing it! I thought that i could use the nickname Lily but I'm embarrassed about that since its so popular right now. I'm also feeling that Sofia and Liliana/Lily don't match that well but I don't know if that's just me.
My husband gave me the opportunity to change it a couple of months ago to anything i wanted but i still haven't been able to do that. There are names that have grown on me such as Francesca and Elena but i know he's not keen on those. I now realize that I like short classy timeless names. I also didn't want any thing to popular. I recently realized how perfect Clara would have been but a friend just called her newborn Clara. I just don't want a lifetime of not being happy with my daughter's name and dreading saying it. I'm really having a tough time with this and I think about it almost all the time.
My questions too you and your readers are:
Is the name Lily too popular? Does name regret get better with time? Should I try to find a new name that I will enjoy saying? Does anyone have similar experiences they can share?
ANY help would be greatly appreciated at this point!
It's okay to change a baby's name, if after the baby is born you think of the name that you wish you'd chosen. Changing it to another name you're not sure about is, as you've found, a bad idea---especially because in my opinion, changing a baby's name one time is okay, but twice is...well, I won't say "totally out of the question," but that's the basic line of my thoughts. The only thing I can think of that would seem okay would be changing back to the original name.
Use the nickname Lily to help you with the feelings that Liliana is too long. Lily is short/classic/timeless, it's great with Sofia, and there is no reason to be embarrassed about its popularity any more than about the more-common Sofia's popularity: short/classic/timeless names tend to be common, but that is because they are excellent and well-liked names. And regardless of ANY of these issues, you don't have a name you like better ANYWAY, even after hunting carefully for a long, long time.
So this is the time, I'd say, to stop with all this: stop looking for names, stop trying to find names you like better, stop agitating about the name you chose, stop wondering if a different name would be better. Those are all activities for before the baby is born, and now she is 4.5 months old and has already been named twice, so I decree it is time to stop. When you feel your mind turning toward the name search, say to yourself, "No, Lily has already been named."
Baby Naming Issue: Baby Name Regret and Baby Naming Issue: Baby Name Regret 2 might also be of use.
