Friday, April 24, 2009

Name that baby!

I am a dork. I totally thought today was Thursday, then just now had the epiphany that it was Friday and… hello, Gemma? Blog?

I’m totally blaming pregnancy brain. In fact, I’ve decided that everything in my life can now be blamed on pregnancy. It’s kind handy. Take out the trash? Can’t, pregnant, too much strain. Get up early? Can’t, baby needs sleep. Did I devour that entire pizza myself? Yep, baby was hungry. I could get used to this.

So, for anyone who’s counting I’m about 17 weeks along now, which means I can find out the sex of the baby at any time. Yay! I’m trying to hold out for 20 weeks, as that’s when I’ve been told is the very best time to catch baby being all developed and stuff, but we’ll see how long I can hold off buying hordes of pink outfits.

And, next to pink outfits, the other thing I’m waiting on gender to decide is name! I’m terrible with names. The hardest part of writing any book for me is always coming up with names for characters. I’m so bad that I started having “Name a character in my book” contests, not for the promo, but so that I didn’t have to name them myself. So, the task of coming up with a name that I won’t mind shouting fifteen times a day for the next eighteen years is daunting at best. Help! I need your baby name ideas. Anyone have any good ones?


~Trigger Happy Halliday

9 comments:

Refhater said...

Best of luck picking a baby name! That's the good thing about pregnancy lasting 9 months, you have lots of time to pick one out.

I did birth certificates while working in the medical records department at the local hospital. You'd be amazed the names that people give their children. The oddest names I saw were Sway (girl) Phat (girl of Asian decent) & Ozwayazig (boy.) My sister has 2 middle names just in case my mom decided she didn't like the first name she originally picked.

My suggestions for a girl are Ainsley or Avery. If she's going to have Daddy's last name than you could use Halliday for a first name and call her Hallie.

For a boy: (just in case) William, Stephen, or Nick.

Refhater (A.K.A.) Joelle

Gemma Halliday said...

Phat? Oh, Lord. Talk about teasing.

For a boy, William will definitely be the middle name. Family tradition dating back centuries from when the first Halliday's named their son William after their uncle William Wallace (Braveheart). Pretty cool, so I'll be keeping that one. :)

I have not even begun to think about which last name the baby will have yet. Yikes! More decisions...

~Gemma

Terri Osburn said...

I love that you think you'll only have to yell the name fifteen times a day. LOL! We all know it's more like double that.

I like the names Madison, Emma, and Katherine (after Hepburn who I think was such an exceptional woman). I named my daughter Isabelle and got some flack from people who thought it was old fashioned, but it's totally her. If I ever have another (DOUBTFUL!), I'll name her Esme. I love that name.

I rarely think of boy names. Something to go with William. Hmmmm.... I like Joshua, Aiden, and Garrett. My daughter would have been Garrett if she'd been a boy. (I watched Message in a Bottle while pregnant and loved the name Garrett Blake.)

The great thing about the pregnancy brain excuse is that you can always use it from here on out.

"How could you forget your day to blog?"
"I've had a baby during my lifetime."
"Oh, I see, well that explains it."

hehehe

Lucy said...

I had the same reaction as Terrio - 15 isn't a big enough number. :)

And I'm sure whatever name you come up with will fit the child beautifully. :)

Gemma Halliday said...

Lol! Okay, maybe 15 was optimistic. See, when the boy is being good, I call him things like "monkey" "darling" "cute stuff". It's only when he's bad that I have to remember his middle name. :)

Terrio - Isabelle is actually one of the most popular names for little girls around here! That and Sophia, which I would have thought sounded old fashion, too, but there are at least four Sophia's in my son's grade alone.

~Gemma

catslady said...

I like both those names but also April and Alysa (my daughters) - I didn't want nicknames. Names I also like are Lilly and Sarah. I'm only giving girl suggestions :)

My niece has 7 kids ranging from 15 to 1 so she has excuses for absolutely everything lol.

Anonymous said...

My oldest son is named Soren. I looove his name. Especially when I get to break up the sylables Sor-ren! My youngest is Simon. No nicknames for me either (I'm Elizabeth but have always been called Beth-hate Liz). I do like my middle name Ariel, pronounced Ari-elle. If my boys had been girls they would have been Camille and Marin (like the county). I liked Maren but hubby didn't. I also love the name Delany for a girl and Annelise (so feminine and pretty). Good luck with the name, I had mine picked ahead of time and worried they wouldn't look like their name... but they did.
Best to you and baby.

Alexis said...

I don't have any suggestions, except to say stay away from the exotic or the ethnic. My husband and I were born in the 1970s and try going through childhood named Alexis (Dynasty anyone?) or Carmine. It's been a trial. We named our daughter Abigail.

Judi Fennell said...

Contributing to the what-not-to-name-your-kid: these are actual names from maternity nurse stories:

Female (rhymes with tamale) b/c, ya know, the hospital names the kid.

twins: Syphilis and Gonorrhea. The mother liked the way they sounded. "Such pretty words." Um... okay.

And the winner:

Sh*thead. Pronounced "Shih theed." No amount of talking to the young mother could sway her. So, somewhere out there, some child will hate her mother for life for naming her that.

So, I'm going to say that any name you pick has GOT to be better than those.