Name Game

Hands down the most commonly asked question I get these days is "Do you have a name picked out yet?" (or a variation thereof).  As mentioned before, we tend to wait til well past the last minute to choose so, no, we don't.

Despite some guesses to the contrary we don't plan to name the baby Dan/Danny/Daniel, etc... I love my Dad dearly, but we have a slightly different plan.  First, you may recall that Brendan is partially named after my Dad already (Bren (Brent) + dan (Danny) = Brendan).  This wasn't the only reason we chose his name, but is part of the "equation" if you will. (Perhaps I should blog his name choice story somewhere too as it appears that I haven't done that yet...)

 There will be a bit more in the middle name this round. It is likely that our son's middle name will be Ambrose. Ambrose was one of my Dad's alter ego names.  Just as my Mom likes the name Belle (which was the likely middle name had this baby been a girl) my Dad used Ambrose in lots of ways and it reminds me of him.  It is also my paternal grandfather (his Dad's) middle name. My Grandpa died when I was roughly seven or eight so I don't have tons of memories of him, but some very clear snapshot ones of random things--- like a love for circus peanuts.  Also, for the record, Ambrose means undying or immortal in Greek, which is a sweet connection to my Dad and his memory as well. We do have one or two other contenders should we decide to do something crazy like make the first name Ambrose or go another way for some reason.

Back to the first name business though.

We began with coming up with four very general criteria to consider (and so far none of the names below meet all four.....)  Anyway, the ideas were:

• Does not begin with B, M, or R -- preserving the kids' initials and not duplicating the last name initial.
• Does not end with the letter "n" as something more than 1/3 of boys names do now and it just seems like too much. We quickly discovered that we like a lot of names that end in "n" as well....
• Name or preferred nickname is two syllables.
• Is in alphabetical order--- therefore, it would start with N or later letters in the alphabet.  This is somewhat whimsical and overly limiting, but I have always thought it was cool that my siblings are named in alphabetical order, even though I am told  it was a coincidence. 

With all that in mind, here is my very tentative list.  I do mean VERY tentative as Brent hasn't really officially weighed in on most of these yet or added his ideas. He, true to his realistic nature, thinks there is no rush as we will, of course, not chose a name until after the baby is born.  I'll probably post a poll later when we're closer, but for now here is what we're pondering. (in alphabetical order)

Bennett
Everett
Finnian (Finn)
Ian
Tristan

One more thing-- we don't like to use extremely popular names. Liam, for example, likely would be on this list too, but is #30 now among boy names and that is probably too popular for us. Ian and Tristan are actually both in the top 100 for 2010 as well....

There is an initials consideration as well.  As Brent's mom discovered, having the middle initial "A"  and last name starting with "R" does cause some possible issues when you look at initial sets.  We're trying not to stress over it, but will keep it in mind.

As you might guess, our kids have opinions on the matter as well.  B's current suggestion is "Brendan Jr.," which won't work for obvious reasons.  His consistent back-up plan is Thomas.  Lady M is consistently suggesting GaGak (or something like that), which has also been vetoed.  I'm not entirely sure how clear M is on what is actually happening in any case...

There are, technically a few other less strong contenders flitting about as well, but this gives you at least a peek at our thought process and current ideas at 21 weeks!

Ps.  We are very open to suggestions so leave any you might have in the comments.  We do retain full discretion to veto them all... despite what my 5 year old might tell you about his planned names.