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Saturday, August 12, 2017

Names

Oh, hey! Another pregnancy post! I'll try to move on to other topics soon, but everyone loves a name post, right? You know how everybody knows those people who start dating and immediately start naming all their perspective children. I am not those people.  Most of ours have not been definitively named until transition is closing in.

I find naming children somewhat difficult. I think this difficulty is born of my given name, shared by half the girls born in the 70s. I feel almost completely disconnected from my name. It's more like a label than a name. One of the great mass of Jennifers. It doesn't feel personal or that it says anything particular about me. I did not want my own children to have the same disconnected experience from their own names. In practice this means I have gravitated towards more classic names and tried to avoid trendy names. It turns out all the other Jennifers feel the same way. (I tried, Olivia, I tried.)

I admit I am picky about names. I don't like a lot of them. I promise I love your kids' names whatever they are, but I cannot easily find names I love for my own kids. A name has to feel right to me and it is hard for me to describe what 'feels right' actually means. 

So now we are on our fifth child and our powers of naming are running low. This state of affairs is distressing to Grace. Almost every night at supper, she asks, "What are we going to name the new baby?" We all throw some suggestions around, but nothing seems to stick or feel right. Repeat again tomorrow night.

The current ex-utero children are named:
Grace Elizabeth
Olivia Rose
Samuel David
Marian Josephine.

The new baby is purported to be another girl. I tend to Englishy names, something Jane might name a character. So what do you think? What should we name the new baby? Help us, lest new baby end up being called Clare Annette.

1 comment:

Sarah said...

Beatrice Frances
Edith Mary
Daphne Clare


?

Naming is a bit of an obsession of mine, but like you, I struggle when it comes to naming my own PARTICULAR children rather than abstract children. Ha!