Choosing the Best Name for Your Baby

Expecting a new baby is both fun and exciting and so are the challenges that go along with it. One of the challenges and decisions that you will have to make before your baby arrives is what name to choose. You want your baby’s name to be perfect so sometimes this fun activity can turn into a real challenge. If you are trying to decide what to name your baby, use this list as a guideline. Following this list will make the name choosing process go a whole lot faster and be more enjoyable.

• To get your creative juices flowing, search for lists of baby names on the internet. Sometimes we can have a mental block when it comes to activities like this. By finding several good lists, it can give you good ideas that you might otherwise never have thought of.

• Make a list of family names that have been handed down through the generations on both sides of the family. Be careful when choosing family names. No family member may admit it, but grandparents can get pretty jealous if you name your children from family members on one side of the family and not the other.

Be sure you don’t cause hard feelings. If you name a baby after one grandmother, make sure you can include the other grandmother’s name for a future child. Trust me on this one.

• Decide if you and your spouse like traditional or unique names. If you like traditional names check the baby name lists for the most popular names and see which traditional names you like the best. If you are choosing a unique name, be sure that it isn’t too trendy. What sounds "unique" now may sound downright weird 15 years from now.

• Names with meaning are always good – just make sure they have a good meaning and not a bad connotation. You wouldn’t want to name a baby girl Jezebel (a woman of bad reputation from the Bible) or Hitler (a maniacal dictator responsible for and death of millions of people). A name like this would be a burden for your child.

• Biblical names have always been popular. You can find the meaning of these names and the character of the heroes of the Bible from baby name lists or by looking at the glossary of your Bible.

• Names of your heroes can be a good choice. While Batman wouldn’t be a good choice, naming a baby after a personal hero or mentor can have a very personal meaning to you. Think of the people in your life who have inspired you.

• Make sure the name you are considering goes well with your last name and the combination isn’t strange. If your last name is Beach, don’t name your daughter "Sandy." If your last name is Banklin, don’t name your son "Benjamin." He will spend the rest of his life saying, "No, Banklin. Not Franklin."

• When you find a name that you like, check the initials. You don’t want your child’s initials spelling out something ridiculous like "DOT" – Department of Transportation or "PMS". Your child will not be amused later in life.

• What about nicknames? If the name you like is prone to being reduced to a nickname and you hate the nickname, you might want to reconsider. Some names just seem to always get switched, for instance, Robert always seems to get changed into Bobby.

• Don’t get to "tricky" with the spelling. It isn’t fun to have to spend your life explaining over and over how to spell your name. Cindy is so much better than Syndee. Your child will tire of this quickly and revert to the traditional spelling just because it makes their life easier.

• Choose a name that will grow with your baby. Buffy sounds cute now, but when she’s a News Anchor or a professional Real Estate Agent, it isn’t too cute and won’t help her further her career.

• Take into consideration your culture. If you are naming your baby a name that is traditional for your culture, will it make sense to other cultures? Jesus is a traditional name for boys of South America but sounds very strange to Christians in North America.

Make a list as you take all of these things into consideration. Sit down with your spouse and cross out the names that either you or your spouse object too. It’s not worth trying to name a baby a name that your spouse hates – after all, it’s their baby too.

When you have whittled the list down to the names you both like, then go through the above checklist and consider each name carefully. By going through this process of elimination, you will soon come up with a name that everyone is happy with. Above all, make sure it’s a name that your child will be proud to have.
Source: http://www.healthguidance.org/authors/324/Jason-Ladock