We are expecting Baby Reid #3 on May 16th and are keeping the gender a surprise this time around. We have agreed on girl names but I am really struggling with the boy names!
First off, we already have 2 children.
Nolana Emmanuelle will be 3 in April (her name is pronounced "No-Lawn-ah" not "No-LAN-ah") and we call her Lana ("Lawn-ah") 95% of the time.
Our son Carson Roderick was born in June of this past year so it was quite the surprise to learn that I was pregnant again 2 months later! Seeing as they will all be so close in age I really want to make sure their names flow well together.
My husband and I both agreed on the names for our first 2 kids. Nolana was a compromise seeing as my husband really wanted to name her Lana but I felt it was too short, so when I saw Nolana in my 100,000 baby name book I knew it was perfect. I am surprised however at how many people pronounce it wrong. Even people we have now known for over a year still manage to say is incorrectly despite us constantly saying her name, so we have tried to avoid names that would get pronounced incorrectly since. Emmanuelle means "God with us" which I loved, plus it had 4 syllables. I think longer middle names sound better with our last name. With Carson it took us months to agree on his name but I am so happy we did and the name suits him so well! Roderick is my husband's middle name.
So now onto Baby #3.
The one, and ONLY, name my husband will even consider is Lincoln. He is so in love with this name that it surprises me because in 3 pregnancies now he has only ever picked up a baby name book once. It was always me suggesting names and he did the vetoing (like so many other spouses I read about on here!). He has begged for this name to be used in the previous 2 children but I managed to avoid it and since this baby is our last he knows it's now or never to use it.
I feel stuck because I don't hate the name Lincoln, but I don't love it either. We agreed on Xavier for a middle name and I DO think that Lincoln Xavier sounds great - but again, I don't get that "Love it!" feeling. BUT, I do like the idea of being able to tell this baby that "Daddy named you!"
I feel guilty because this baby is so close to my last pregnancy I haven't even wanted to pick up a baby name book because I just did it a few months ago! We prefer uncommon names (preferably not even the top 100 although Carson was the exception!)
I guess my questions are the following:
1) What are your thoughts on Lincoln Xavier?
2) Does it flow with our other children's names?
3) Is it okay to pick a name I don't love, but don't hate either?
I would love to hear your input!
1. I think Lincoln Xavier read is a fantastic name.
2. I think it goes very well with Nolana and Carson.
3. I do think it's okay to choose a name you like but don't love, and I think the most likely thing is that once it's on the baby it will grow on you until you DO love it---but there is, of course, also the risk that it won't.
This is a crossroads for you. If you continue to like-but-not-love the name Lincoln, your husband will put all of his naming energies into convincing you to use it. If you want him to divert that energy to finding new possibilities, I think it will require you saying to him that the name Lincoln is out of the running as a first name, and that he needs to help you find something else. The tendency is for the parent who wants a particular name to think of it as the other parent's responsibility to find a name that's "better," but that responsibility belongs to both parents.
If you decide you're not willing to use Lincoln as a first name, one possibility is using it as a middle name. It's not what your husband wants, but if having it as the first name is not what YOU want, it at least rescues the name from "never getting to use it at all." But of course that still leaves us the problem of the first name.
It's hard to know what to suggest. I think maybe "names that are in some way or another similar to Lincoln":
Aidric
Atticus
Beckham
Deacon
Felix
Finnegan
Fletcher
Forrest
Frederick
Gideon
Langston
Lennox
Malcolm
Quentin
Shepard
Sterling
Sullivan
Tillman
Truman
(I had Anderson, Edison, Harrison, Jefferson, Lawson, and Wilson on there, too, but thought you might not want both sons to have a -son ending.)
