More names we’re considering or rejecting

To ensure that the names we consider stay under wraps I won’t be mentioning any of them in this blog. However, there are a few names which definitely won’t be on our list.

The way we’re going through names at the moment is simple. When we have some spare time (not much of that around here) we sit on the sofa and go through the 40,001 Best Baby Names. I’m more convinced than ever that some of them are made up. The last three days since I started waving the magic burning wand over Charlotte’s little toes (see my blog from a few days ago) have given us two 20 minute sessions a day where we have been able to kill two birds with one stone by sifting through names. The way it works is Charlotte reads out only the most stupid names which will make us laugh and also the names that she likes. That way I say yes or no to whichever names I like too and we add only those ones to the shortlist which we both like. Although we rarely find a name which we both like, we only need to find four for each gender. The plan is that all our children will have a second name. I never had one because, as I explained in a blog before, my parents were children during the Second World War and, consequently, were conditioned to ration everything. They carried this conditioning over to choosing names for my brother and I although I notice that my sister was given a second name so I’m not sure exactly what happened there. As we don’t know the gender of the twins yet we have to prepare for the possibility of two girls or two boys, hence the need for four boys’ names and four girls’ names.

So, we have now reached the letter “L” in the girls’ names section and in the last few letters we have only just managed to find one name that meets mutual approval. No, I’m not saying what it is.

But here’s a list of some of the rejected names:

Egypt

We haven’t even considered Niall either……………..Niall/Nile, geddit?

Iona

No, no, no, no, no. Iona, Iona, I-own-a bicycle etc

Jamaica

This reminds me of the old joke:
“My wife’s just gone to the Caribbean on holiday.”
“Jamaica?”
“No, she went of her own accord.”

Jaylo

Yes, really. Named after Jennifer Lopez - so not a chance we’ll be using that one thanks.

Jinx

You just wouldn’t do that to your own kid if you loved them, would you? Apart from the obvious connotation that goes with Jinx, I can see that a girl’s schooldays would forever be ruined as classmates would always be running up to her and saying “Hi Jinx!” and then fall about laughing hysterically.

Lilette

Again, for pity’s sake who would name their child after a tampon - I think that should be considered child cruelty and abolished forever.

So, we’re still at the stage where we’re compiling our shortlist. More to follow in due course…

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A few more daft names we’re not considering
Skimming my really useful book of 40,001 Best Baby Names I found the following three daft entries back to back under the “P” section for girls. My apologies to any readers who may have been given these names by their parents…

Porsche (Latin) which means giving; high-minded (or 944 Turbo)
Portia (Latin) is a giving woman
Posh (American) is a fancy girl (not to be confused with our very own Mrs Beckham), although Posha, another occasionally used girl’s name is an acceptable derivation (as in Posha Spice-a)

OK, my fundamental problem with Porsche is that obviously it’s a type of car. And it should stay a car. It’s confusing. It’s like naming a new Japanese saloon car the Honda Kevin, or calling your precious, gorgeous, cuddly little newborn Cortina. It just doesn’t sound right.

And none of this helps Charlotte and me in our quest for names. We are currently considering two names neither of which appear in the 45,001 Names book so we know we’ve got unusual ones there.

If we ever agree on names before the twins are born, frankly I’ll be stunned. And if we haven’t then we’ll have to revert to my original plan of tattooing Twin 1 and Twin 2 on their foreheads……

Roll on the inspiration.

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My wife, Charlotte, said earnestly at lunch today that the worst part of being pregnant is choosing names. We both have similar ideas about this. We don’t want to go for anything in the “Top 50” as we’d like our children to feel unique and special while they’re growing up. When I was at school there was nobody else called Luke. At the time I wasn’t sure I liked it but now I’ve got used to it and actually like being one of the only Luke’s of my age. In fact I don’t remember coming across many others with my name at all when I was young.

So we’re now going through the process of choosing names for our twins. Not yet knowing the gender of them means we have to select our top four boys’ names as well as our top four girls’ names just in case we have two boys or two girls. We had a challenge choosing Monty’s name and surprised a few people when we christened him “Monty Joe”. We often get asked what Monty is short for and we reply saying that it’s not short for anything – it’s just Monty. No point in giving him a name if it’ll just get abbreviated later on, we thought, so we did it for him.

So today I stopped in a bookshop and looked through the baby book section to find a book on names. And there were loads of them, several written by authors who seem to be very well known experts in the world of names. I nearly bought one for £8.99 which gave detailed descriptions of names and their origins. But in that copy there were only 5,000 names listed whereas I secured what I consider to be an absolute bargain when for a mere £6.99 I found a heavyweight volume called 40,001 Best Baby Names (as if there’s a Worst Baby Names volume). Advertised as “the one-stop baby-naming shop” and at just over a tenth of a penny per name I felt this represented the kind of superb value I just couldn’t walk away from.

The book thoughtfully provides a definition for each name together with variations on the spelling. There is also a section early on with several lists of suggested names including: Girl names for children of lesbians and gays (e.g. Celeste, Darcy, Pia and Ramona), Over the top boy names to avoid (e.g. Attila, Caesar, Lancelot and Rambo), Macho names (e.g. Bucko, Rip, Zoom and Spike), Exotic names for your baby girl (e.g. Cheyenne, Phyllida, Saffron and Sheba) plus many many more (as they say).

So it looks like Charlotte and I have a lot of reading (and probably laughing) to do over the coming months. Our definite no-no’s will appear here in due course. We’ve agreed that we’ll only include names we both really like. And because of that, sadly, Kermit has already been struck off my list. Happily though, Scooby is still in with a shout.

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Choosing names for our children is presenting a real challenge. When we were expecting Monty we googled a lot… Mainly we searched for lists of most popular names. I was the only Luke at my schools between the age of 5 and 13 and I was keen to have names which were out of the ordinary and “bold”. I thought this might encourage our first-born to develop bravely. So we went for Monty. It’s not an abbreviation. It’s just Monty. And we gave him a second name, Joe. We did that because I was fed up with not having a middle name. Most of my friends did and I always thought there was something special about having a second name. My parents had both grown up during the war so when I was born in the 1960’s rationing was clearly still in their mind. Therefore I was to receive one name and one name only other than my family name and this was to be used sparingly.

So Charlotte and I decided to give our children more than one first name. I wanted to go for three but she wasn’t so keen. So we agreed on two. And it was fine with Monty. But now we have to find four boys’ names and four girls’ names. Charlotte doesn’t want to know the gender of our twins in advance. I would prefer to know but don’t want to know if Charlotte isn’t going to know. I’d only let something slip and feel terrible. So we’ve agreed we’re not going to find out until the twins are born.

We were slow to research names and even slower to agree on any. All of the ones we quite liked were in the top 10. So we were forced to be amore creative. We thought of Greek, Roman and Norse deities. But we couldn’t see ourselves really telling Zeus for the third time to brush his teeth or reminding Thor to wipe his feet before coming indoors.

Luckily Monty’s pregnancy went two weeks into extra time so by the time he arrived we had chosen his name already.

So now we’re going through the same process all over again. We have a few months to go but we can’t even agree one name let alone four!

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