Baby Names

My sister-in-law Jean and I recently had a long conversation about naming babies. She is due with a boy in March (boy cousins five months apart = great news for Will!) and I was grilling her a little about her naming process. While she and John are not revealing the name ahead of time, we talked about how they had decided on "Megan" for my three-year-old niece: "It wasn't my top choice, and it wasn't John's top choice...it was just the only one we could agree on."

Dave and I had chosen a boy's name prior to the Big Reveal Ultrasound, but not a girl's name. In fact, when we left that ultrasound appointment in a stupor, Dave commented that now we wouldn't have to think about names again for a couple of years.

Dave, is it? Hi, I'm Joanna. Nice to finally meet you! Baby names? Sure, I've been thinking about them since I was five years old, although at that point I was trying to name my imaginary future baby sister. What did I do when I realized I wasn't getting a sister? Thanks for asking! I actually proceeded to name the five panels of my bedroom bow window. I gave them first and middle names. And I wrote their names on the windowsills. In neon puffy paint.* What do you mean, that's crazy? Wait, where are you going? YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME NOW, WE TOOK VOWS, THINK OF THE BAAAAABY!

But I digress. Basically, Jean and I concluded that 1) naming babies is hard, and 2) naming babies whose last name is "Noon" can be especially hard. "Noon" is a noun, and therefore the following adjective/descriptive-word names are out of the running before the game's even begun: Summer, Autumn, April, May, June, Scarlett, Coral, Ruby, Dawn, Crystal, Amber, India, Chyna...not to mention anything that rhymes with "Noon" and all the tricky monosyllabic names like Brooke, which I love but Dave doesn't like when it's paired with Noon. He tells me it sounds too choppy. Even the name Taylor when paired with Noon...well, it rhymes with the name of the animated Japanese character Sailor Moon.

My last name is hilarious!

All this, and I'm not going to tell you what our favorite names are because there are still more babies to be had and therefore secrets to be kept! Suffice it to say, girls' names are tough, and boys' names are not that much easier. Still, I'm sure that we will all love the newest Noon boy's name, whatever it may be. Of course, we'll love the boy himself even more.


*This story is entirely true. Eventually I had to help my mom chisel the dried puffy paint off of the windowsills; I wish I had written down those names before they were lost forever.