You Got the Name: Now What?

Earlier I wrote about choosing a name for your baby. Some commenters noted some aspects of what to do once a name has been chosen that need to be addressed.

Particularly this: after you've (hopefully) followed Daddyfesto's rules and you’ve chosen your baby’s name, the next serious question you’re faced with is whether to tell other people about the name. There are two schools of thought here.

The first school of thought is the “dibs” / “no snakes” school of thought. In this school of thought, baby names are like seats in a crowded college apartment: you gotta call it to reserve it. By announcing the baby name widely and loudly to all of your friends, you put everyone on notice that this is your name and that if anyone stole it for their own baby, the wrath of God (a/k/a the wrath of your pregnant wife) would be unleashed upon them. This school of thought is most likely to be useful if you have a number of friends that are also pregnant, particularly if they are farther along in the pregnancy than you.

But, ultimately, for most people, this way of thinking is probably silly. These days, people choose names for their babies like “Ronan” and “Qdoba” or are spelling names in crazy Irish ways with all kinds of extra vowels. People are getting all trendy with the names. So if you’re choosing a weird one, most of your friends and acquaintances are going to think the name you choose for your kid is fucking retarded. By calling dibs on the name, you’re only announcing that you think that the retarded name you’ve chosen is actually so amazingly cool that people might steal it. So it might actually be better to just keep your head down on this one.

The second school of thought is the “keep it to yourself” school of thought. This school is largely pragmatic. People from this school recognize that, before the baby is born, other people think that they have a right to express their opinion about names. I mean: more people than you realize are willing to say, after you tell them the proposed name, “that’s a stupid-ass name.” The fact that the baby isn’t born yet seems to make people think that they have license to say whatever they want about the name and can be rude. And so then when you name your kid the name anyway, other people feel really stupid and it’s very awkward. And when you get drunk with them, your wife will bring it up.

Living with a few awkward moments with most people would be OK, but, frankly, the primary people that are going to tell you what they honestly think about a planned baby name are your mother and your mother-in-law. And so living with even more awkwardness in that relationship might actually be a problem. The best way to fix this problem is to have your wife create and send the baby announcements prior to the child’s actual birth, instead of after the birth, as is presently the custom:

“Jhohhny Rotten Jablonski is due to be born around November 2, 2007 and is supposed to be 9 pounds or something ridiculously big like that, so labor is going to suck. He better be born by November 3, or I’m cutting myself open and dragging him out and I will also give him less love throughout his first 18 years. Do you hear me Jhohhny? If you don’t like the name, too fucking bad, we aren’t changing it, so start pretending like you like it pronto."

The best thing about this kind of baby announcement is that it is in writing and final, so it doesn't invite comment, and as long as your mother and mother in law receive it, no one else has to. So give those two the announcement, blame it on the wife's pregnancy hormones, maybe call dibs on the name solely to other pregnant moms and zip your lip with everyone else and tell them you’re still on the “M’s” in the baby name book and won’t have a decision until the date prior. Easy as pie.