ohhhhh the suspense. come on, you know you want to tell us.

Grayson! Or Maxwell!

I can’t wait until ‘he’ arrives and you share your chosen name. It’s going to be perfect I’m sure!

Love the new blog Milk and Cookies by the way…..

Mumfred, right? It’s gotta be Mumfred.

Oh, I didn’t mean to point out that my cat’s name is Elliott. I just mentioned it because a previous commenter said her son’s name was Elliott, and I thought it was cute (since I consider my cat to be my child for now), and I am rambling. Sorry about that. Can’t wait to read what you’ve chosen!

I totally want to know! Although, I also wouldn’t tell anyone if I were you. But still, you can tell me. I can keep a secret! :)

I missed the name thing yesterday so here’s mine, I love the names Jaxson and Ryker!
Congrats on the pregnancy also :)

I’m glad you posted that thing, because it made me realize that the “uncommon but still recognizable” name that we had picked out for a future son is actually quite common, or at least quite popular among hypothetical baby-namers. So, thanks for the shared market research, there.

I love you.

ah, a woman after my own heart! :) I’ve been so protective over the name of our (still impending) son because what if he arrives and I look at him and the name clearly wouldn’t fit him? What then? When people have already made little monogrammed things and embroidered blankets, etc.? They’d probably be pissed we “changed the name on them” or something else equally ridiculous.

Now if only our little one would COME OUT so I could finally tell people what we named him way back in March! Two weeks past due is TOO LONG.

Whoa, Grayson. Your kid could be Robin’s secret identity. That’s kind of cool.

I liked Death, from yesterday. This is probably a large part of why people don’t allow me to name their children. (Also, Liz was right – I muddled my Shanes and Robbins jewelers, so if you feel the need to tack EE onto Smarks, you probably won’t have the problem I was worrying about.)

All people names are potentially dog, cat or mouse names. Or car names, for that matter.

Max or Maxwell is a great name, but it’s been in heavy rotation in the early oughts (see http://www.babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/lnv0105.html)

I had a fit of work avoidance and typed your name choices into Nymbler, and here’s what it came up with:

Keegan
Darby
Brett
Kenney (I thought they killed him, the bastards)
Carson
Bryce
Terrance (oh, come on, Nymbler, that’s not how it’s spelled)
Patrick (turns your family into an Irish joke, with Riley; likewise an issue with Finnegan/Finn)
Shane
Gavin
Evan
Colin
Duncan
Riley (hee! guess the engine works!)
Reid

Okay, I should probably stop playing with this thing.

Whew! I read through yesterday’s comments and suddenly felt like total crap over the fact that my DOG’s name is Kody. “OMG! I swear! We didn’t name him! He came to us with that name! He’s 9 years old, but should we change it? Should we maybe start calling him Brodie or Odie? Would he notice? Are all the other dogs in the neighborhood making him feel inferior because of his name? What to do?! What Would Kelly Ripa Do?” Wow. Good thing I don’t have kids, I guess. The pressure of naming him/her would kill me. But um….good luck with that! I’m sure whatever name you choose will be perfect.

It’s Zeus, isn’t it? Or Buzz Lightyear? Tha’s why we didn’t tell anyone Vic’s name when he was in utero. We didn’t want any negativity BEFORE the poor kid was born!

Horace? How about Horton? He’d be very popular in preschool.

That’s why no one knew our choice till the kid was here. I saw what happened to family members when they would like “names were thinking about”!

Smart woman…

Haha Grayson. I know a mama who named their child that, called him Gray for short. People constantly typo his name, “Gay.” Poor kid.

It will be just perfect because it is the one you picked out with your little boy in mind. It will fit him, and it will be a wonderful name. Oh, and comcast? Don’t get me started. They are our internet service interupt…er… provider and they drive me nuts. My job is sending file oriented and when one cannot send files out on rush orders, one tends to get more than a little upset with one’s “provider”. Take care.

I know a couple who chose to keep the name of their baby a secret for the express purpose of precluding people’s BS input. Good idea.

My dad always tells the story about how his coworkers laughed in his face when he told them the name of his new son, Henry. Yeah. Of course it’s all trendy now, 19 years later.

Well, for what it’s worth, when I was a kid, my name was considered out-right weird. But now there’s approximately a million tots running around with that name, and now most people who hear it say, “Oh, I love that name!” So I’d say even if it’s a kinda weird name that you still love, you should go for it. It could very well come into vogue sooner or later, and then won’t you be the bees knees?

But LOTS of people have cats or dogs named Chloe too. Oh, and my cat’s name is Ben… I still really like the name though.

I’m excited to find out the name! I didn’t participate in the name fest yesterday because I am not planning on procreating anytime soon, and I don’t have any idea about names anymore.

I missed Name-A-Palooza yesterday. I’m so bummed. I am definitely going to read the comments right now!

I would like to know your baby name. I LOVE BABY NAMES!! It’s my third favorite pastime! Here are my next two choices for bebe #3:
Delaney Rae- for a girl
Finn Grady- for a boy

Mind you, I am not even pregnant! I have never cared if anyone liked my baby names. They are MY children. I liked them. I already have an Aidan and a Quinn- both boys!

Come on, tell us.

I agree with you — keep it a secret, keep it a secret!! When you give birth and then tell the name, people will be all (1) ohh what a cute baby (2) how are you feeling? (3) how is Riley handling the re-directed attention, (4) Oh yeah, nice name.

I.e., if we hear the name at the same time as the baby’s arrival, people will have so many things to distract them, there won’t be time for opinions about the name. So one will be telling you whose dog or talk-show-host-ugly-baby or local-barista already has that name.

Yeah, we shared our name choices last time, and I got so much stress from everyone hating our boy name. Thank God it was a girl! I am not sharing this time, I’ll tell you what.

I learned my lesson about “keeping the baby’s name secret” the hard way. Husband’s family truly sucks sometimes. So, keep it secret. My only suggestion is to make sure the initials don’t spell anything horrible.

We didn’t tell anyone the name who chose until after Charlie was born. Neither of us wanted to deal with everyone’s opinions about our choice. Not to mention we actually went with both first and middle names from my husbands side of the family and didn’t want to hear it from my side. Not that my family gave us any great options to work with, I just don’t think our child would have been able to pull off Wolfgang (my brother), Clyde or Frederick.

I always kept our names a secret, too! I figured there should be some sort of surprise surrounding the birth and since we already knew the gender, the name seemed like the perfect solution. After the birth of each of my sons, it was my mom’s first question “What’s the NAME????” Even though you get bombarded with questions, and some people just don’t understand your secrecy (my MIL was always trying to trick me into revealing the name) I loved have that little surprise. Plus, it gave me the option to change it if I ever wanted to. :)

My favorite belongs to my friends son – who is a real loser – but he has a great name “Saylor”

I still think Max is a terrible name to hang on a kid — think “Maxwell Smart,” “Maxwell House coffee.” Besides, to me Max IS a dog’s name. Never convinced the friend who named her kid Maximilian, though (thanks a million, Maximilian). If kids can distort your kid’s name, they will. I’m sure you will find the exact right name for Brother of Riley, though.

God, I cannot imagine anyone saying that they hated our baby name choices! Moreover, I can’t imagine any jackhole that would say anything about my baby name choices changing my mind. I think it’s important to keep opinions like that to yourself, EVEN if you knew a boy in grade school with a certain name, or had a hamster with that name, or whatever.

Someone above said that they don’t tell the names because they find out the sex of the baby and that’s interesting to me. We don’t find out the sex but we do tell the names. I wonder if it’s always like that?

I gotta tell ya, you are one brave lady for letting us all fly off the baby name handle. Can’t wait for the little one to arrive! Best wishes in the interim…

I missed yesterdays post, and I’m going to add names. Just cause I can!

Reece
Ryan
Hudsen
Evan

Honestly, I find the whole baby name discussion really funny, in a weird way, because it’s *so* subjective. And the thing is, whatever your baby’s name is, that’s who he’ll be.

It was so incredibly brave of you to even open it up for discussion, because wow, yeah. People are brutal. Hilariously brutal.

My top 10 out of all the comments yesterday: Callum, Cole, Finn/Finnegan/Finley/Griffin, Jackson, Logan, Mason, Miles/Milo, Nate/Nathan, Oliver, Owen.

Riley & Callum, love the L-thing. Or Riley & Griffin, for something different.

Can’t wait for the final update in a couple of months! No one around here ever shares anything about their pregnancy: sometimes people do tell the gender, but “the” name is the best kept secret in this country.

We did the same thing with Cole – We knew from day one that he was going to be called that but we didin’t want to tell people so they couldn’t give their two cents worth – instead we told everyone that he was going to be named Holden Commodore (my husbands fave car) and it was great fun to see peoples reactions. We were worried that he wouldn’t look like a Cole when he was born but of course he did!! Its a nice surpirse for everyone else as well -e sp if you are telling people what the sex is.

Whew – name decisions. I didn’t read all of yesterday’s comments, but for me it was so overwhelming. We had it down to 2 by the time I was ready to deliver, and honestly, the our labor nurse kind of made our decision. Sad, huh? She said she’d seen a LOT of Austins come through, but very few Joshua’s anymore. So we went with the latter.

Oh, I hope it isn’t the secret name that I’m not telling anybody so I can have it all to my self! Take “Colin,” will ya? It’s splendid with “Riley.”

We don’t generally reveal the candidate names before the birth, but then I don’t use my kids’ names on the intarwebs anyway. Call me paranoid. Also call me someone who likes to annoy my ILs. We give the uterine parasites ambiguous nicknames, then drop hints about how the nom de womb relates in some way to the chosen names, then sit there and watch them go mad for months trying to figure it out. Hee hee!

Our name choices are Very Very Traditional so I figured they wouldn’t go well with Riley. But I love reading other people’s naming discussions – especially if they veer into Not Without My Handbag territory (not snarking anyone here, my eldest’s name gets a mention on NWMHB!). I haven’t read yesterday’s thread, due to being sick and spending most of the day sleeping, but I think I have to now, to see if I can guess *g*

Aaargh! Clearly I am still sick and dopey. That above anonymous comment was from me…

I think it’s smart to keep the name a secret. It really does cut wayyyyyyyyy down on the negative opinions. Thrust a cute newborn face in someone’s direction and all they can do is droolingly accept whatever name you say.

Also, it makes the birth date much more exciting.

Hey, I named my son Horace!

(Kidding, I needed to say that?)

I figured a kids name has to be easy to yell really loud.

can you just give us a little hint? :) Maybe just what it starts with… or how many letters… please!!!!

Dude, it’s not cool to admit this as a man, but I actually really want to know what you are gonna name your baby. Men shouldn’t care about strangers baby names, but your witty banter and ass-burn cliff hangers have me somehow absorbed in the mystery and wonder of pregnancy. From a safe distance, might I add. None of that baby shit up close. I almost shit myself the other day because my friend made me hold his baby. Baby holding is scary as shit. Like knife fighting aids ridden hobos after running through a mace filled obstiacal course of razor wire in the dark. I found myself akwardly holding the flailing little creature at arms length wincing like I was defusing a bomb. Then I got scolded and tried sitting and propping the little bastard up in my lap where he promptly baby jumped and double heel stomped my nads. So no babies for me, but yay for you, and make with the name givage for the love of Rock.

I’m at 24 weeks and learned I’m having the girl; of course, I had a number of boy names picked out and girl names seem elusive. I love the name ‘Cayetano’ (Cayo for English pronunciation ease–like Kai-yo); my husband liked Titus (after Titus Groan from the Ghormenghast trilogy–bleeding brilliant books too, if you are still in the market for a meaty tome or three). I also liked Rio (met a cool guy in Belize who was named Rio and it SO fit him and seemed like such a great name–Duran Duran stigma aside…). Cayo’s from a sexy spanish bullfighter named Cayetano Rivera, incidentally. I also believe St. Cayetano is the patron saint of unemployment, which I find highly amusing for some reason.

My girl names are even weirder and I’m reluctant to tell them to people because I know they’ll go “…. huh… don’t you think she’ll get teased in school?” We told my husband’s mom one of them and she exhibited about that level of enthusiasm and said she’d think of her own name to call the baby for now. The hell?! Parents are so freakin’ weird.

(ps – Have read your blog for years but never posted a comment. Shy I guess.)

Hi!I love Finley and Finn for short!!!Dahlia Eileen for a girl!!!Much Luck it’s soooooooo hard!

My boyfriend’s parents wanted to name him Hermie when he was born. Not Herman, just Hermie. Can you imagine all of the ass-kickings in school that would have generated? They tell this great story about how the nurse insisted that she wouldn’t let the baby leave with such a goofy name. I’m glad they settled for Brian.

My daughter named her kids cody chase, cory chance, kendall rylee and karlee ryann. I call kendall maggie though because she’s a little magpie. Karlee was just born a month ago so she doesn’t have a nickname yet. Cody is the professor, and Cory is bugs.
The dogs names are skipper, stormy and goldie. (Not people names!)
I love Riley, and I’m sure the secondopus will be named appropriately.
What was the name if he had been a girl? Just out of curiosity?
Oh,and my son? Named his son David Allen, last name starts with M. He hadn’t realized what the initials would be till I told him.

I have to totally support you on the name protection thing. That’s what we did, mainly because my mother-in-law is evil and would have crapped all over my beloved name, ruining it for me forever. And, we picked it at about 15 weeks, so we had a L-O-N-G time to keep it secret. Which was just a bonus, because it drove everyone nuts that we’d decided and they didn’t know. So, enjoy it while it lasts!

Now naming dogs is a completely different thing all together…….Labrador Retrievers need “people” names. Ours are Rosie, Otto, and JoJo. Irish setters need Irish sounding names like Clancy. Yorkies need cutesy names like Baby, Tinkerbell, and Pookie. Chihuahua’s need cutesy hispanic sounding names – like Paco, and Margarita (but I can’t imagine why anyone would want a Chihuahua – sorry!)

If we ever get another yellow lab (female), her name will be Miss Moneypenny – “Penny” for short. Got it from the name an actor I like used for one of his cocker spaniels. Can’t do the spaniel, but I can do the name!

My absolute favorite human girl name – that I NEVER got to use (drat my husband’s abundance of “Y” chromosomes!) is Allyne. My father’s name was Allen – I was supposed to be named after my dad, sort of. So I thought I would name my daughter after him.

Long time reader, first time commenter here! Our due dates are just days apart – mine is the 19th (though I’ll be having a third c-section so it’ll be before that – yikes!) . We are having a boy, too! After two girls (and this being our last) this is very exciting for us. We have argued and argued over the name and finally decided on Grayson Elias (family name), so as you can imagine I was tickled with the title of this post though secretly hoping you didn’t choose that name too :), lest there be two Graysons born in the same city, perhaps on the same day – oh my!

Uh oh – that came off really, “That name is mine – nanny nanny boo boo. ” So not what I meant – really. It could just be THAT cool of a name, right? It was # 800 something on the SSA’s website of 100 most popular names in WA so I thought we were doing something unique. Ahhh, sweet reality.

that should have said 1000 most popular names. Okay, I’m done, really.