Home | Log out

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Baby Boy Name Needed

Thursday, February 24, 2011
A. writes:
I'm so glad I stumbled on this site and am sure hoping you can give us some ideas here! We're expecting our first child, a boy, at the end of March. We're having a hard time picking something that suits our varies preferences, including: not overly common; not too "whitebread" (forgive the expression); perhaps offers a bit of international or back-in-style hipness, without being too unusual or ethnic in a way that just doesn't match who we are (or perceive ourselves to be). I've got an old country Jewish half, and a German half, and my husband has a Scandanavian background with some English and German in the mix too I think. We consider ourselves urban types who value the modern yet natural in our lives. Also, a bonus would be a name that offers baby/toddler nickname-ability... like Owie is to Owen. If we had ended up with a girl, we were already both very happy with the name Nadia or Nadya.

So, for instance, names we've liked but can't use (because someone else close to us has used them): Julian and Luca (I know, we're not Italian, but I was willing to overlook that for Luca). I was curious about Judah but that was was too biblical for my husband's taste. We each like well enough Ethan but find it way too overused now. As my only back up, I like Noah, which feels like a decent fit though my husband thinks Noah is too biblical. But, I feel guilty about the idea of giving him a top ten name (I hated how unusual my name was as a child but am so grateful as an adult that it's so uncommon) - I think it's currently #6 at the SSA! That alone makes me hesitant to fight for the only name I feel I could live with so far. We've considered Sebastian, but it feels a little too blue blood or something. I've thought about Jude, but we're not jumping up and down about it (and it spells "Jew" in German, which could be a bit weird for one half of my family). We recently started thinking about Noel, but since it means Christmas, and it's likely to get wrongly two-syllabled all his life (AND, we're not Irish), we haven't been able to settle with it either.

Can you offer us any feedback or suggestions?? I feel so horrible not having picked a name yet- I feel like he deserves to have an identity already. I know we have time, but after going through surely thousands of names each, I'm just feeling defeated.

Many, many thanks!