What's in a name?

by Amy Galvin
Second City Mommy

When you are pregnant there are 3 questions you are always asked:

1.) When are you due?

2.) Do you know what you are having?

3.) Do you have a name picked out?

The first two are easy to answer and most of the time you don't mind sharing that information with the general public.

My husband and I found out what we were having as soon as we possibly could. Like I've said before, we are planners, and we needed to know. I understand we are in the minority these days, as most people want to be surprised at delivery. It's a personal choice, but at the end of the day - SURPRISE! Here's your baby! Now go be a parent! Isn't that shock enough without adding, oh and there is a tiny penis attached to that baby too. I guess I just need time to adjust to that kind of information.

However, I always found it kind of interesting that complete strangers would ask me the name of my unborn child. I didn't even tell my own mother, why would I tell the girl ringing me up at the Nordstrom make-up counter?

Plus, not everyone knows their child's name before they are born. Look at Tom Brady and Giselle Bundchen. It took them almost an entire week to name their kid and they had the whole world waiting impatiently.

To be honest, we didn't need everyone giving us their opinion on the name we had chosen. We felt that once she was out and we had named her, there wasn't much anyone could say about it.

We kind of always knew what Mia's name was going to be. I was flipping through a Pottery Barn Kids' catalog long before I was pregnant and saw a pink nursery set-up complete with the name "MIA" on the wall. I told my husband I really liked that name and it stuck with us.

Her other two names (yes, two names - see this is why we didn't tell anyone her name before she was born) were a bit tougher. We really wanted to honor my great grandmother, but we really loved another name and had even debated making it Mia's first name. It took some time to finalize, but in the end we chose to go the three name route. And we are so glad we did because it really is beautiful. I just hope Mia doesn't hate us when she is filling out her SAT forms.

A site I found very helpful when I was thinking of names was www.nameberry.com. They have meanings for all different kinds of names and great articles like "If you really like Emily, you may like..."

There are so many new and interesting names these days. When we were growing up our classes were filled with Jennifer's, Lindsay's, Adam's and Daniel's. I can't wait to hear all of the creative names of Mia's future friends and classmates.