How to Name a Baby (or Two) When You’re in Your 40s

March 22nd, 2016

Twins

Eliza on left, Phoebe on right

My stepdaughter is 17 and she has her first daughter’s name picked out. I won’t spoil it for her by sharing it with you, but I will continue to beg her not to have a baby until she is at least 25.

When I was in my teens I kept journals full of potential baby names. With my future husband, River Phoenix, I planned to raise a brood of nature lovers named things like Meadow, Fawn, and Seashell. Luckily, I did not get knocked up by River Phoenix. That idea was tragic for more than one reason.

By the time I actually had a baby, in my forties, I was in for a rude awakening. It turns out that naming a baby is a lot harder than teenage-me thought. You can’t just turn to the pages of Tiger Beat for ideas. 

There are actually five big factors that go into naming a baby as an adult—six if you’re having twins.

1

You have to cooperate with the other person in charge of naming your baby. Turns out, they get half the vote. My husband shot down my #1 baby name (Evelyn) right away, with a sour look on his face. He also wasn’t going for “Mabel.” In turn, I shot down all of his boy names before we found out we were having girls. I just don’t see myself as a mom of a Hank or a Butch, as much as I missed my calling as a 1950s hausfrau.

For a girl, Jon’s number one fave name was Tree. He still expresses disappointment that I did not go for that one. Thank god there is a system of checks and balances in baby naming.

2

It has to work with the last name at hand. Young teenage girls don’t often take that into account when they’re making their lists of baby names. When I was naming my daughters, all my beloved M names went right out the window—Margaret (my paternal grandmother’s name), Maeve, Margot. They all sounded too singsongy with McIntyre.

3

If you’re having twins, the names also have to work together, without being too matchy-matchy. You can’t do one really long, glorious, regal name with another that’s short and full of moxie.

4

The name actually has to work for a human being. It has to work for a baby, but more importantly, it has to work for an adult. An adult who hopefully won’t hate you because he or she can’t successfully order a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

Before I became pregnant, I thought I would be a way hipper baby-namer—one of those people who makes up names you’ve never heard before, involving Zs and Qs in unexpected places. I have friends like that, and I admire their ability to go bold with their names. A friend of a friend named her daughter Mazurie (nickname: Maisie) and I have a little bit of baby-name-envy about it.

But it turns out that I’m not as imaginative and iconoclastic of a baby namer as I thought. When I sat with myself, I had to concede that I like elderchic baby names that aren’t in the top 100 list, but are familiar, and more importantly, are easy to spell and pronounce. As a lifelong “Joslyn,” I want to spare my kids the time wasted spelling their name slowly over the phone and correcting its pronunciation millions of times. So out the window went two names I loved but can’t really figure out how to spell: CARE-iss and k’r-IN.

5

It can’t be a name that one of your friends is already using or has claimed. One of my best friends claimed the name Winter years ago, and it’s hers, although I really do love it. Another claimed Evan for a girl. Oh well.

6

And lastly, it can’t remind you of anyone you have ever loved or hated. This is the tricky part, because by the time you’re in your 40s, you’ve known a lot of people and have had a lot of feelings. Every other name my husband and I mentioned to each other was met with “Er, I dated one of those in college” or “Ugh, I hated her in grammar school” or just, you know, a look.

So it is that, in the end, there were only two names left that Jon and I both loved, that worked with our last name, that worked together, and that didn’t remind us of anyone at all: Phoebe and Eliza. I love these names and feel like they are so right, even if we ultimately arrived at them by process of elimination.

Oh, but then we had to discuss middle names. That was fun.

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7 Responses to “How to Name a Baby (or Two) When You’re in Your 40s”

  1. Meghan says:

    This is ALL so VERY true (even if I’m only in my mid-thirties)!

  2. Leslie says:

    Am I the friend that claimed Evan for a girl? Cuz if I wasn’t, I meant to. (And for the record, the fact that I will never have a baby doesn’t mean my claim doesn’t stand.)

  3. Jennifer says:

    So true! And Maeve is my favorite girl name!
    We needed up with a boy, yes, a Q name, Quinn. It’s unusual without being weird, and it just suits him so. Have never looked back. Oh! And first thing our midwife said when we told her his name? “That’s a hot guy’s name!”
    Bam!

  4. Tom says:

    So if you had aligned with John on Tree, what would her sister’s name have been?

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