Ada Lovelace

I’m having a baby in three months. Not surprisingly, the first questions we’re asked when people find out are:

1. When are you due? Well, that’s easy enough. The doctor told us that information at our first doctor appointment.
2. What is it? Well, that one’s easy too…it’s a baby. You know the type. Tiny head, tiny hands, tiny feet – no, not a midget – it’s a baby. Oh, you mean is it a girl or boy? That answer is easy too. We had an ultrasound and it appears to be a girl. To us it looked like an alien. A very cute alien, but an alien, nonetheless.
3. Have you decided on any names yet? This is the question that I struggle the most with. The main reason is that I’ve never been good at naming anything. When I was little I had a favorite girl cousin, Emily. We’re a year apart and we used to live pretty close to each other. She had a brother that was about my older brother’s age, so naturally our moms got us together a lot.Emily was also the name of a character on Saturday’s Warrior, an LDS movie I would watch at least once a day. Emily is in Heaven for most of the movie, then at the end she is born. As a child, I would rewind this part over and over and watch it because I loved the sound of the crying baby.So it’s only natural that with such a high affinity to this name that every doll I had growing up was also named Emily. How did my mom distinguish which Emily doll I wanted? I don’t know, mother’s intuition, I guess. But this name just won’t work for my own baby. I can’t very well name a baby after my cousin.

With my lack of creativity in the naming department when I was a child, I never fully developed that part of my brain. OK, so we don’t have a specific part of the brain that is in charge of naming items, but I need a scapegoat, and that’s what I choose it to be.

When I found out I was having a girl, I got really excited and started searching the internet for girl names. I like unique names. I was the only one in my classes through my school years with my name, and I appreciated that. I always felt bad for the kids that had to be distinguished by their last name because there were four Ashley’s in the class and seven Mike’s. In fact, two of my best friends in 6^th grade were named Amanda. We called one “Amanda A” and the other “Amanda B.” It worked for us.

Unfortunately, my husband likes more common names. He belongs to the Institute for Naming Children Humanely. I know—who knew there was such a thing? Well, that greatly limited most of my choices. So we came up with, what we feel is, a clever plan: we’re not going to discuss names until we’re on our way to the hospital.

There have been times when I’ve gone against thus said plan and tried to discuss names with him anyway. The conversations usually only last a couple of minutes, and I fully resolve not to ask again until the appointed hour is here. The following excerpt explains why:

Me: “I really like the name Annabelle. Can we name her Annabelle?”

Husband: “Um…as you know, I am a member of the Institute for Naming Children Humanely. According to their website, Ann/Anne/Anna is fine, but ‘We’ll have none of this “Annemarie”, “Annabel”, “Annette” nonsense.’ (http://inch.stormpages.com/girls.html). Now…how about Gurka? It’s such a beautiful name. And it has a strong root. How many people do you know with names that really mean something?”

Me: “Well, my name means loyal/kind.”

Husband: “Really, is that what Wikipedia says, or something that you just read somewhere? Here, I’ll look it up. Yea…just as I thought. According to the Wikipedia, your name is a city in Australia. That won’t do. It breaks a child naming rule.

Me: “Oh good grief. I was named after my great grandmother, and she was definitely not named after some city. It’s a family name, is all. But if you think Gurka is such a great name, tell me what it means.”

Husband: “It’s a Swedish word. It means pickle. And the baby does kind of look like a pickle.”

Me: “Ummm…no. Fine. On the way to the hospital.”

I’m sure people will continue to ask question #3, and be puzzled and amazed at my quick response that we’re waiting until the ride to the hospital to figure this out. But secretly, I think it will be too difficult to argue with a pregnant woman in labor, so I’ll get the name of my choice. Now to just figure out what that will be…