The Name Game

One of the things I have read over and over about pregnancy and parenthood is that it can be really difficult for the father to really connect with the whole concept.

I have been making a huge effort over the last week or so to have little informal 'baby' conversations. usually they are prompted by something hubbys is watching (he loves his documentaries) so it is easy for me to say, "What would you do/think/say if one of our children did that?" and it gets us started.

We have talked about presents, Christmas traditions, bedtime routines, manners, religion... all sorts of things and I have a few posts planned about some of these.

Over the weekend, we started talking about names. We have quite a few criteria that we agree on, which is a good start! We both want something relatively traditional, but not necessarily common. We want 'normal' spelling! And, apparently, all we can think of are boys names...

I really like hubby's middle name, which also happens to be his dad's name. I'd love to use this name for our child, but don't want to upset my family if they feel we are favouring hubby's side. It's a name I have always liked, so not sure if I should hold on to it given the situation. I even posted about this topic on the Essential Baby forum, here.

Out of the blue, hubby also mentioned he liked the name Aaron, which I do quite like, but I can see my brother laughing about forever, as he maintains to this day that I had a secret crush on a school friend of his with this name.

Hubby had a very close relationship with his grandfather, being almost raised with him as the main male influence, and has a super old fashioned name. I like it for the meaning it has to him and hadn't thought of it in any other way till I did a google search for the name and this appeared!

Not sure I can face the thought of putting my child through the torment of being called "Ducky" or anything like that! Disappointing though, as "Don" is also part of the special code hubby and I developed to talk about ourselves after we got engaged. Maybe as a middle name it's not so bad?

The other trouble I have when it comes to names is being a teacher. There are so many students I have taught in the past that I have destroyed my ability to ever think of anyone but then when I hear certain names.

And girls' names? Well, I have no idea where to start!