All Akimbo: When naming a rose just stinks

By Kim Blakely, Mojo and ???’s mama

Editor’s note: We feel Kim’s pain and bet you other mamas do, too. So that’s why we’re enlisting your help to Name That Baby. Please submit name ideas for Kim’s baby girl (due in June) and we’ll compile a list for her. Maybe we’ll just turn this into a contest. Comment here or send your ideas to mamas@nwaMotherlode.com and we’ll see if we can’t restore harmony in the household.

I’m aware this time around of just how hard parenting is, but at the moment I’m not so sure that the naming process wasn’t put out there just to help prepare people for the challenges that lay ahead.

There’s so very much to consider in the decision about what to call your children. The moniker you stick – er, bless – them with will be theirs for the rest of their lives, and it might color the way the world sees them and even the way they see themselves. You don’t want a name that leads to merciless teasing on the playground or one that makes them seem too silly, too serious, too frumpy, too… oh, I don’t know, too anything.

Names are funny things, or at least they can be. We attach perceptions to them before we meet the people they represent. We form reactions to names after we meet the people they represent. And, sometimes, we remember people based on what they’re called. Is it any wonder choosing a name is so hard?

Add to that monumental task the challenge of two people reaching an agreement, and … well, good gravy.

Truthfully, if the job of naming our child were mine alone, the job would be done. (I have no doubt my husband would say the same thing.) This business of reaching a committee consensus… it’s impossible, I tell you! (And that’s not even taking into consideration the voices of the ex-officio members, otherwise known as the grandmothers.)

I love names like Anna, Ava, Ella, Claire, Grace … you get the gist. My husband prefers Ilsa, Elsa, Juliet, Hazel and Lucille. Do you see the problem here? It’s a matter of divergent tastes.

Oh, sure, there are one or two that we both could live with, but we haven’t found one that we both could love, so we continue to pore over books and read movie credits and ask the names of perfect strangers in hope of inspiration.

I’m trying hard to keep my sense of humor about the situation. We do have a few more months, right? (I hit 22 weeks this weekend.) And won’t laughter, after all, see you through most trying times?

I just have to share with you the abbreviated form of a story told by one of my favorite bloggers, Emily at www.captainhambone.typepad.com.

Emily just had a baby girl, and for whatever reason, she and her husband didn’t look up the meanings of the names they chose before putting them on her birth certificate. When they found themselves in the ob/gyn waiting room for Emily’s postpartum checkup, they grabbed a baby name book from the table and checked it out. Their daughter’s name? Lucy Claire. The meanings they read? Lucy = Light, Claire = Bright. They realized they had named their baby “Light Bright!” (I know, I know, the popular toy by that name is actually Lite Brite … still.)

I think that’s hilarious, and I’m tempted to suggest that we call our own daughter whatever translates into “Spin Art” or “Easy Bake” or maybe “Lemon Twist.” (Please tell me you remember those toys … ?) I’m tempted, but I resist because with my luck, my husband would think those were fabulous ideas and then I’d be stuck.

Help!