What’s in a name, anyway? Can someone really “call dibs” on a name?
YES! You’ve been so busy planning your family, spending hours dreamily talking about your baby’s name, imagining all the nicknames and rhymes and sounding them out to make sure it’s okay, writing it out a million times mixed with your name, your partner’s name, and imagining your life with your little one – and your sister/best friend/family member has their baby first and names their baby the name YOU chose for your baby that YOU shared with them! (“Don’t worry, I’m going to spell it differently,” is one excuse that came up in a story shared with me… HA!)
I received 135 replies when I posted this in an online moms group. Some commented that names are names – there’s no way of calling “dibs” as so many of us out there have the same name. And what if you hear the name from someone who wants to use it for their own child but you just fall in in love with the name… if you love the name, you’ve just gotta go for it. Even if you’ve got cousins in the same family who end up with the same name!
But there were a lot of stories of the friend who named their baby or even their puppy a name that was shared with them by a friend! One woman’s name was meant to be named Amber until her uncle got a cat just before she was born and named it… Amber!
This is just one reason that you need to keep your planned baby names to yourself. Another reason is that people will have no qualms about sharing what they dislike about your planned baby name! A family member straight up wrinkled their nose and said to me, “Oh I don’t like that at all,” and then tried to convince me to use a hideous family name. But, if you present the baby to them after they’re born… MOST friends and family won’t tell you how much they hate the name to the little baby’s face. (MOST).
Names are always such a personal thing, but in no time your child becomes their name and the name becomes the child, and we can’t imagine any other name for that kid!
-Jen
#ThatSurreyMom