There’s a fun article in Sunday’s Boston Globe about how hard it is to name your baby. All of the rules we set up for ourselves, how judgmental we are of other people’s choices, and how daunting it can be to pick a “label” that will stick with your child forever, before you’ve even met him/her. It struck a lot of notes with me because, though we settled on our kids’ names pretty early, I had an awful lot of criteria to satisfy. (And, I admit, I have sometimes strong opinions on other people’s choices…) Among my own requirements:

• Nothing in the top 10 for popularity the previous year – much as I love names like Emma, I didn’t want my daughter to be one of 6 Emmas in the first grade.
• Nothing that felt too “trendy” – a less clear-cut criteria, but one of those “I’d know it if I saw it.”
• No “J” names – Our last name starts with a J, but it’s correctly pronounced like an H. I knew a hard J name would be death sentence for ever having the last name pronounced properly. This did rule out a lot of boy names, and I admit that I was glad to find out we weren’t having two boys, because I’m not sure we could’ve agreed on two boy names.
• No “H” names – because, on the off chance someone said our last name right, it would be some annoying alliteration. Thankfully, not a lot of “H” names that either of us liked, and Hannah was already used by a cousin (yes, with the same last name… we didn’t love it.)
• Careful with the ethnicity – though our last name is Hispanic, we’re also raising our kids Jewish, I’m Irish and French, and the twins are (percentage-wise) more German than anything else. A Spanish-sounding name might have matched the last name, but it would not have felt particularly authentic. An Irish name would just be a weird match. Etc, etc.
• Straightforward spelling and pronunciation – again with the last name, ours is misspelled and mispronounced more often than not. If they’re going to have to correct people on their last name their whole lives, they might as well have a relatively easy first name. And no substituting a “y” where there should be an “i” or anything else silly like that. (I’m looking at you, Addysen.)
• No “matchy” twin names – I didn’t want their names to rhyme, have the same first letter, or otherwise be a pre-fab matched set. Though it was fun to joke that they’d be Oprah and Harpo.

And that’s just the beginning. Plenty of other names were ruled out because of weird associations, people we knew, etc, just as anyone else might do. The names had to be pretty classic, not sound silly with our last name, not spell something rude with the initials… it’s almost amazing we came up with anything.

M picked Daniel early on in the game, actually a couple of weeks before the “big” ultrasound. I was considering it at the same time, but was not as convinced as M. What about Benjamin? Samuel? Nathan? No, M would not be swayed. Daniel fit the bill. His middle name is after M’s beloved late grandfather, Paul. We always knew that our son, whenever we had one, would have that middle name.

Rebecca was originally Sarah. I liked Sarah enough, but it was a little more commonly used, and had a notable lack of built-in nicknames. I wasn’t satisfied. We had a few more girl names on the list (Molly, Miriam, Katherine), but Rebecca seemed to fit the bill. Classic/biblical without being overtly “Jewish,” multiple nickname possibilities (I think she’ll end up a “Becca,” but we’ll see), and even a strong woman in the bible (who had twins! It was meant to be.). I was sold. Her middle name is my mom’s name, and my middle name: Anne.

Both names satisfied me on the popularity/ease of use criteria. While they’re well-known names that are easy to spell and pronounce (I talked M out of Rebekah), they aren’t super popular at the moment. Babycenter.com even said that, in 2007, Rebecca was one of the fastest-falling names on the chart. Daniel is also on a downward trend (check the usage graphs on Baby Name Wizard). Neither is even close to the top 20. A good thing, in my book.

We kind of went half-Jewish on the naming traditions. The traditional thing to do would be to name someone after a family member who had recently passed away, which we did in the case of Daniel’s middle name. It’s also considered bad luck to name a child after someone who is still living, which we did anyways, in the case of Rebecca’s middle name.

We also were not really of the “wait to see the baby” variety. Mostly because we kind of think that all newborns look like either Yoda or Winston Churchill (or kind of like a skinny plucked chicken). But we still didn’t tell anyone which names we’d chosen until after they were born, just in case we had a last minute change of heart or stroke of brilliance. In the end, the names seemed to work just fine. Though I remember it took a few weeks for me to truly associate the name with this tiny baby. We didn’t always call them by their names at first, not because the names we picked felt wrong, but almost because any name felt kind of odd. Ah well. We’re over that.

So, all of you new parents out there (especially you fellow bloggers), how did you decide on your child(ren)’s names? What were your “rules”? What names were ruled out, and what names were close runners-up? Tell the story in the comments here, or post it on your blog. I can’t wait to find out if you’re all as anal-retentive as I am. No? Hrm. Maybe it’s just me…