We're having a boy! The youngest two (I guess now they're the oldest two as well) went with us to the 20-week ultrasound yesterday. Everything looks perfect and we got a couple of really definite looks at boy anatomy. That evens the score for Teams Blue and Pink in our family.
For some reason, boy names are insanely hard for my husband and me. Our son wasn't named until halfway through labor (to be fair, he did surprise us by coming 7 weeks early). I can't decide whether we're aided or hindered by requiring our children's names to be common in both Holland and America, to be pronounced roughly the same way in both languages, and not to begin with a letter we've already used (to avoid confusion: Dutch mail is delivered to First Initial Last Name). It greatly reduces the available names, which leaves us less to work with but also less to get lost in.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Tim, Lex, Luke, Gilles, Niels, Nick, Finn, Otto . . .
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12 comments:
Congrats.
So far you have been perfectly able to come up with 'good' names for your kids. I'm pretty confident that you will pull it off, again, this time!
If I had to pick one from your title I would pick Finn, but who cares ;-)
Our second one was called Daniel for those reasons. Unfortunately that is a rather common name [/understatement] and I now regularly have three or four Daniels at home.
So for number three we chose Falco (also because it means either white or alien, depending on which root you think it comes from) and that seemed appropriate for a white half-immigrant ;)
Tim is very popular in our region, Lex makes you look like a monarchist, Luke & Lucas were on my list too, Gilles I like but I'm a Buffy-fan, Nick was my number two choice, Finn is nice too, Otto is the name they used in my childhood to tease with (vague sexual hints in how you move your mouth and tongue) so I wouldn't choose that one.
Have you prepared yourself for an avalanche of suggestions :) ?
Great news about the ulstrasound, I remember the relieve I felt afterwards as well as the feeling as if we were closer now that I had an idea of what you looked like. Not to mention the relieve that there were no unexpected deformaties showing up.
Dutchmarbel, we're *counting* on an avalanche of suggestions! ;)
Nick would be my #1 choice were it not for my mother-in-law's father, who was, shall we say, not highly esteemed by his children. Gilles I like but in America it just seems too . . . French. Luke and Tim are very popular here, Otto doesn't do much for me (my husband likes it), Niels doesn't do much for my husband. Finn we both like (hi Robin :) ), but when we left the US 6 years ago it was becoming very popular. And Lex, well, indeed, all I can think of is the future king. Falco, hmmm, hadn't thought of that one, but it immediately associates with an obscure German pop singer from the 80s who had one hit in the US.
Adding to the list, I like both Ivar and Lars but they've been previously commandeered by close friends. I like Soren but we already have an S. Orson (after my favorite author) would work, but I just don't like it. Sigh.
Wonderful! I have BGBG and you have GBGB :-) Is it too early to arrange a marriage?
I really like Finn- though I can't shake the image of a baby Ice-T.
Aaah Orson. Currently reading Speaker and trying to take it slowly b/c I love his characters and being in his universe. How about a variation of Andrew?
Karen
Koenraad? Lucas? Pieter? Willem? Xander?
Karen - I hadn't thought about the Law & Order Finn yet, oooh. Why does every name come with an association? ;)
You know, I could name him Ender. Works in both languages ;). But it's weird if you haven't read the books (Ender? like he ends things?) and, well, *heavy* if you have.
I take it you've read Ender's Shadow as well, given the last list of names :). (Bean grew up in Rotterdam, right?)
Just this morning I woke up and thought of the name Ian (or Iain). Haven't run it by Marco yet...
You prefer relatively short names, judged by the examples. The advantage of longer is that you can shorten them in various ways ;). I like Jonathan (Nathan, Jonah, Jon) for instance.
Ender is nice if you've read the books, but lends itself to teasing by the other kids. Though if they want to tease they always find somthing of course.
I also liked Iskander and Fabian when we were contemplating names. Maybe Owen, as a cross between Otto and Ian ;) ?
Caspar and Caspian I liked too, but these days Caspar is mainly associated with the little ghost.
Robin? Or isn't R allowed? Which letters shouldn't be used as starting letters?
Dutchmarbel - Mmm, hadn't thought about how short all the names I listed are. I actually require that most short names are a nickname for something longer--comes from growing up in the US, where Sam is *always* short for Samuel, Tim for Timothy, Bill for William, Ben for Benjamin, and so on. So our Lex would have been an Alexander and Nick, a Nicholas :).
Caspian--that makes me think of the Narnia books. But a nice name . . .
Marco vetoed Ian and then Alan, sigh. He'd already vetoed Caspar and Owen, but please, keep the suggestions coming! :) Just saw in an e-mail that he's suggesting Arne. That could work. Although I guess in the US it would be pronounced "Arnie" and I don't need an association with Rosanne Barr's husband ;).
The "off limits" letters are M, S, and B. (G is okay, since I kept my maiden name, but given the pronunciation differences NL<->US, probably best avoided.) So Robin would be "legal." We've got a very close friend named Robin, however (he of the first comment to this post). And one of my most serious past relationships was with a Robin as well, which has kind of turned Marco off the name in our family ;).
Finding names is hard work, but fun too. I remember I couldn't even watch a film without intense reading of the credits - you never knew where you'll find a good name ;)
I like Gideon, but I'm a small minorty there. Even my spouse didn't like it, and his second name is Gereon.
After an afernoon of assisting at school (Pietenfeest) and looking at names, I can add Julian, Joey, Yannick, Remco and Christian to the suggestions-list.
Arne would be too close to Anne for me (but in the North of the Netherlands Anne is a guysname).
Hmmm... Nordic names... Pjotr (you'd have to nickname him globetrotter though)? Olaf?
Com'on G-Girl, stick with your Southern roots.
Just call'im 'Y'all'.
Som when you ywll out the back door you'd just say, "Y'all come in for supper, now."
"How Y'all doing" actually sounds correct conversationally although the grammar doesn't really work.
Peter
you could hide that in "Jelle" I guess ;)
You could always pick a name that's uncommon in both countries instead of one that's common.
Our next baby is due in 9 weeks and we're also spending a lot of time on finding the right name. I'm Dutch and my wife is American.
The one thing that helps us is that we both want a name that's relatively uncommon in both places, and there's obviously a more plentiful supply of uncommon names, because they can be foreign to both cultures and still qualify.
On the other hand, we still have twice the work to do, because we don't know the sex of our next baby. And then there are the middle names to choose, too.
If I were you, I'd try to force myself to care less about the TV associations and such. Assuming your child grows up in the Netherlands, no-one's going to notice (or care if they do) that he shares a name with a character on Law & Order. Your son will have greater longevity than any TV programme that's popular today.
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