Three Rules For Choosing Your Baby’s Name And How I’m Breaking All Those Rules

So many responsibilities that come with being a parent. One of the first tasks bestowed upon us as a parental unit is choosing the name. (Well, I guess first you might want to pick physicians, decide how you'll decorate the nursery, cord blood options...Ahh...I'll stop now. Getting overwhelmed.)

But when you really think about the gravity of selecting your offspring's name (identity) he or she will carry through life, it's intense. Mason, Bobby, Andrew and I were going through a list of some of the worst and craziest names of 2019. Pinches? Yes, that's a real boy's name. Xxayvier. "Yes, that's right, DMV counter clerk, two x's one y." Amina was one of the girl's names selected for 2019.

One's name really can have bearing on how you're perceived throughout life. Take Roxanne...I wasn't crazy about it as a kid because you want to fit in with the pack a little more as a kid. But as an adult, I love that not a lot of people share my name. But it's still easy to pronounce, easy to remember. Though it's not a popular name, it carries quite a bit of notoriety. Thank you, Sting and UTFO. And, thank you, Mama, for picking my name. (Her inspiration didn't come from singers, but rather literature. Cyrano de Bergerac.)

In any case, Here are a couple of tried and true rules you can follow to make sure your human's interaction with others isn't marred through life by a wacky name.

#1 Have it be a real name. See the aforementioned Pinches. Not a real name.

#2 Select a name that when the teacher sees it written out on her list of new pupils, there's no question as to how it's pronounced. You don't want your daughter, who you named Amina (which by the way, is a beautiful name), to deal with this her whole life:

Teacher: "Anime?"
Amina: "Here, but I pronounce my name Uh-Meen-uh. It's not the word for Japanese cartoons. Thank you."

#3 Make it a name that when someone hears it, it sticks. Maybe you meet a new co-worker with a beautiful name like Adora, but then you want to address that person by their name, but you're only 90 percent certain that you've recalled it or are pronouncing it correctly. Ninety percent isn't enough, so then you don't address them by name. You call them "honey" or "babe." And then you're served with a harassment suit. Everyone loses thanks to Adora's parents.

Now that I've proposed these rules to help your baby/future-competent-adult swim effortlessly through life with as few awkward name-induced social interactions as possible, I'll tell you how I've violated them all in the selection of my soon-to-be-arriving baby girl.

Hubby got to pick our first daughter's name and he went classic and classy. He chose a family name. Evelyn does not violate any of the three baby-naming rules.

But for our little lovie arriving in December, I get to pick. I've been carrying this name around in my pocket for 15 years as my future daughter. Drum Roll...

DAVIANNA.

Many years ago, an adorable little girl rang my doorbell selling Girl Scout Cookies. As I loaded up on Samoas and Thin Mints, I asked, "And what's your name?"

"Davi."

"Oh, that's cute. Is it short for something?"

"Davianna."

And I knew, just like that...it would be my future daughter's name.

And I think this speaks to what an easy-going partner I am that I didn't fight for this name for our first daughter. Hubby kind of gave me an eye-roll when I was pregnant the first time and brought up Davianna. Too exotic.

But he didn't ask any questions when we found out the gender of this one. He knew Davianna was her destiny.

And though I just proposed those three rules for naming your child, I'm violating all of them.

1. Is Davianna a real name? I promise it is. You can find it in baby name almanacs. But I'll admit that when I type "Davianna" into any document, it tells me it's a spelling error. Uh oh.

2. Is it easy to pronounce when you see it written out? No. People will make their best guess when they see Davianna and undoubtedly, by no fault of their own, mispronounce it. For the record it's Dah-Vee-On'-Uh.

3. Already, when I tell friends the name, they'll say (at a later date), "And what's your new daughter's name going to be? You told me, but I forgot. Davina?" It's not common or notable enough to be a top-of-mind name.

So while I abandoned all of my own baby-naming guidelines, I must add that love of a name trumps all the silly rules. If you love it, eventually your baby will grow to love it because it was bestowed with love. And by the way, when you look up what Davianna means in the baby almanac, you'll find it means Beloved.

~(Happy to be named) Roxanne

You can check out our parenting podcasts here.