The Name Game

Coming up with baby names has been so much more stressful than I ever expected it to be.

Growing up I loved thinking about what I would name my kids in the future. It was a fun game that never really seemed like it would be that difficult to do when the time came. I was always set on names like Courtnie, Ashlie, Brittanie, etc. (always ending in i-e of course) but once I got older I grew out of those names. (Not that they are bad names by any means, I have just grown more accustomed to other names.)

When Jake and I first got married we would talk about names here and there just for fun. The majority of the names I was in love with for girls were old granny type names, names of colors/gems, or both. (ie: Pearl, Hazel, Ruby) As for boys names, I had a thing for last names as first names. (ie: Lincoln, Harrison, Graham)

Jake would always tease me and come up with legitimate reasons that we definitely should not name our kids the names I was thinking. He would tell me that Harrison would be called Harry, and if he was actually hairy it would be traumatizing for him. He also pointed out that Graham Mitchell mingles together (ends in M, starts in M) and sometimes it just sounds weird. As for the girl names, a teenage girl would probably not want to have the same name as several peoples great great grandparents.

Then we went through a phase of relating every name that we heard to someone else we knew with that name and it generally ruined the name for us. Either I had a student, Jake had a cousin, or one of us had worked with or gone to school with someone with that name. Not that we didn't like those people, but just that we wanted to think of our child as the first person we think of with that name.

I was never really on board with the whole make up a name game because most of our names just sounded really weird, neither of us are that creative I guess. We also tried mixing different names together because we had heard some cute names that way. Jake + Karlie = Cake or Jarlie... Not Cute!!

One of our favorite shows is How I Met Your Mother and I had always loved the name Lily and Jake loved the name Marshall (two of the main characters). They sounded like great names, however, I didn't want to tell our children that they were named after our favorite TV show, that just seemed weird to me.

We also went through the phase of trying to name them "twin" type names even though it's so cliche. For a boy and girl we loved Penny (Penelope) and Lincoln. (I also really liked Jack and Jill but Jake said no way.) We also got several suggestions from family and friends on these including: Yin & Yang, Hansel & Gretel, Tia & Tamera, etc.

Once we found out we were having girls, things got real serious! We were giving our girls names they would be called for the rest of their lives! We had to consider if the name would age well, if it would be fitting, what nicknames they would have, if they would be teased, if it would sound good with our last name, what their middle name would be, and on and on and on. So much pressure!

The first names we really liked and I thought for sure we would name our girls were either Charlotte or Scarlet and Eleanor. I made the mistake of sharing these names with a few people and was soon told that Scarlet is definitely a whore name and I should never name my child that. I quickly learned that sharing my names with people may not be the best idea out there unless I'm willing to take criticism. So I decided Charlotte was good, she could go by Charlie and that was just the cutest thing ever and her sister could go by Ellie. They aged well, they were cute, they had good nicknames and they went well with middle names. As for middle names, I really wanted to use Kay because there is a long history with that name in Jake's family and I thought it worked well. I also kind of wanted their middle names to rhyme (once again, I know it's cliche) and I loved the name May so I thought it would work perfect. Eleanor Kay and Charlotte May! Cute, right? (I'm still kind of hooked on these names)

Then Jake's twin brother Matt suggested we give one an M name and one a J name just like their dad and uncle who are twins too. This also took care of the problem of which twin gets which name - the first one out gets the J name since Jake was born first and the second gets the M. This narrowed down our focus. The J name that I fell in love with is June Kay, I don't know if Jake is quite on board with it yet but hopefully soon... I also still love the name May, but I feel like it would be silly to name our girls May and June. Hopefully we can still use May as a middle name. Some other M names we have considered are Macie, Maylie (back to the i-e), Marley, Matilda, and maybe Maggie. I don't know which name would sound good with May and if we want their initials to be MMM though so who knows what will happen in the future...

I just wanted to document all of the possible names our girls could have so that hopefully when we finally decide on something they can see just how crazy some of the other names were. I'm sure whatever we choose will be very fitting and we will love our girls all the same no matter what we call them. We are open for suggestions if anyone has an input as well... Thanks!