What's In A Name?

"What's in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet;"

These are lines from one of Shakespeare's famous plays, Romeo and Juliet.

via

A person's name is his identity. He carries that to his grave. It is not easy to change (entirely) someone's first name under our laws. Thus, aside from 'change', a person's name is permanent.

Many have been asking us (my husband and I) if we have a name for our baby already. At this stage of my pregnancy--8 months, we should have at least a shortlist of the names we will give the baby.

Actually, we do have a name already.  

Choosing the baby's name is no easy task, I tell you. I have this old planner where I listed down the names I like. I was still in the elementary then. Yes, you can say I am that fascinated with names. Now that I can actually get to name my baby, that old planner is nowhere to be found. So, back to square one.

As I was mentally thinking of possible names for our baby (ok fine, I jotted them down and started a new list), I had a hard time choosing. It was daunting, really. I mean, among all the names in the world, you have to pick one and that will be attached to your child's identity forever. What if our child won't like it? What if he'll get teased by the name we gave him? What if he finds his name weird or embarrassing? So many what if's!

How then do we choose our child's name?

I remember the homily of the priest during the Feast of St. John the Baptist (yeah, I do listen to the homily sometimes) and he said that the old Jew tradition of picking out names for their offspring were either based on these two:

1. On the circumstances surrounding the child's birth;
2. On virtues that the parents would like their child to live up to;   

They also have the tradition of naming their child after a dead relative. Naming it after one that is still living was believed to bring bad luck.

There are tons of tips and suggestions that you can find in the internet in naming your baby. Just google it.

So, how did we choose our baby's name?

My husband and I are both lawyers. I can say the process of coming up with our baby's name was done in a legal fashion. There were rules to follow.

To save us from severe headache and possible sleepless nights, we decided to limit our search to names starting with particular letters. Each has to come up with a shortlist of three names within a specific period of time (yes, there was a deadline!) Then came the hardest part--- choosing one name-- THE name.

There was a deadlock (I couldn't think of a more appropriate term).

I like a particular name that he doesn't like. And he likes a name that I don't like. You can imagine the scenario.

What we did?

Compromise.

See, I told you it was so lawyer-ly. We had to let go of the rules we initially set and made a new rule. We picked out the name that we liked the most, combined the two and settled with it.

We're one happy couple.

Our baby's name will have be composed of the following letters:

P.S. We just hope that the ultrasound is 100% accurate as to our child's gender because we have no plan B.