Tuesday, January 28, 2014

... And We Have A Name!

A lot goes into choosing a baby name. Ideally, you choose a name that you hope will grow with your child, a name that suits them not only in their infancy but also well into their adulthood. A name that you don't mind screaming in public, despite how many times you may profess that you'll never be that mom who needs to scrape her writhing child from the floor of Target.

I promise you, your day will come but that is neither here nor there.  

It's no secret that we struggled big time when it came to naming our two sons. This isn't to say that we didn't have a difficult time coming up with girl names but for whatever reason we came about them much easier than the boys' names. 

In case you're looking for some fantastic girl names, might I suggest Delaney Pearl, Sheridan Paige and Eliza Jane. After the birth of our third son this Spring, the only hope I ever have of using any of those names is if we bring home a girl fish or three, an idea that isn't necessarily off the table yet. 

I should take a minute to clarify here just who has the difficult time naming our children. Even though I wasn't one of those women with a laundry list of baby names scrawled into a marble notebook shortly after getting my first period, it didn't take me very long to come up with pairs of names that I liked, some more than others. 

It was my darling other half who always had something to say about my name selections. Now, I don't want to be one of those women who sighs dejectedly while proclaiming, "WHY DOES HE CARE SO MUCH?" because as much as that may have been how I felt at times, my husband did play a vital role in each of our son's conceptions, not to mention the vital role he continues to play in each of their lives as, you know, their father. So although I don't think it's necessarily fair that his opinions weigh as heavily as mine, the man does have a right to share those opinions.

Just as I have the same right to declare my opinions better, more important and let's face it, superior because I'm the one who has to endure the weight gain, the morning sickness, the stretch marks and kicks to the vagina.  

How's that for mature discussion?

In all seriousness though, as I'm sure most parent's don't, we didn't take the naming of our sons lightly. It was often a battle of wills that lasted nearly the entire pregnancy with many an ugly cry on the behalf of yours truly. 

Everyone has their own tastes when it comes to naming their kids and by the grace of god isn't it great that we're only responsible for naming our own kids and no one else's? Personally, I'm a huge proponent of family names. Not so much naming juniors, thirds and fourths, considering I broke that streak when we didn't name our first born after my husband who is a junior, but I do like the idea of re-purposing a family name, be it a first, middle or even maiden name, as a special sort of nod to someone kind of awesome. 

Between our two boys, they share their names with my mother's maiden name, my husband, my father and this really cute boy I had a crush on in the third grade. As for this new baby? The one we've lovingly referred to as "M3?" Well, he finally has a name and a pretty awesome one at that. 

He will share his name with my brother who boasts a derivative of this name as a middle name. It was the only name during this Battle of the Baby Names that my husband didn't immediately veto. In fact, upon hearing the name for the first time, his exact words were, "I actually kind of like that." 

That was huge and it was then, many months ago, when I knew deep down that this name would be the name we chose. And unlike the naming of our second child, I didn't have to ugly cry once. 

So, the final verdict?

Collins Mason


Many thanks to my favorite baby boutique, Peekawhoo, for putting our sweet boy's name into print for the very first time. Needless to say, the above order that I placed nearly two weeks ago was merely a gateway order- now, of course, I want to personalize all the things. 

The ultimate deciding factor this time around? Collins will share the same initials (and therefore, monogram) with his older brother Carter making all of those monogrammed pieces re-usable. My husband couldn't be happier ;)

But between  you and me? I'm just grateful that we'll never have to name another human being again. 

So, tell me! Did you struggle with baby names also? Or was it an easy decision for you?
     
 
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35 comments :

  1. We had an easy time with our daughter since she's name for my grandfather. He loved the name right away and we never strayed. I worry if we ever have a boy though - we can't ever seem to settle on a combination we both like (we keep a running list). Boys seem like they're so much harder to name than girls!

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  2. Great name!! We are struggling now to name our daughter. Our son was so easy, but it's been so much harder this time around. We just can't seem to agree.

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  3. Both of our children were very easy - for our daughter we tossed around Adele Celeste {Celeste being my middle name} and Zoe Grace for about a month - but Zoe Grace won because of what it means. And then our son is Bradford Slade - and he goes by Slade. His was easy because he's a junior. My sisters, on the other hand, took quite a while to name theirs!

    Ps- LOVE the name Collins!!

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  4. We didnt find out before we had our daughter so we had to have both girls and boys names ready. I found the girls names really easy and had about 4 or 5 that we agreed on although Amy was always at the top. For boys names it was awful. We ended up with 2 that we didn't love but we also didn't hate. I was soooo glad when our baby came out and she was a girl! Love the name and can't wait to 'meet' him!

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  5. I love the name! We found it much harder to agree on boy names than we did for our daughter.

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  6. It was a battle for us too. We quickly decided on a boy name but girl names were a whole different story. I wanted Stella and he hated it. Glad we didn't go with that now b/c it's so popular. He came up with Shelby(I wanted an S name since our last name is S), and I jumped! Being from Louisiana and a huge fan of the movie Steel Magnolias, I knew it was the name for us!

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  7. I just love it!!! Seriously, such a cute name!

    I wanted to name my daughter Tatum (because I liked the movie Scream, haha!) but couldn't come up with anything to go with it. So one day my mom called me and said what do you think of the name Emily? And I kept playing around with that and Tatum and came up with Emilee Tayte. My dad pretty much named my oldest son. He always wanted a boy and never got one so I named him Zackary Wayne (my dads middle name is Wayne). And my youngest is Colton James. Luckily, my grandpa's first name is James and so is Colton's dad and grandpa. So James worked!

    Some other names I love are Harlow, Marley, Crew, and Charlotte. I like your girl names also. I have a 2nd cousin who is named Eliza True.

    Can't wait to "meet" Collins!!

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  8. Great name! But I might be partial to "Mason" :))

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  9. My husband and I are both HARD to please so this naming humans thing has been a huge conflict in our house. Our first child (a daughter) wasnt named until she was two days old and it looks like baby #2 is going to be the same. We cannot agree on ANYTHING boy or girl. UGH. Why do men have to have such strong opinions. He should just agree with me. Though I love that he cares - it also drives me batty! Love the name and it fits perfectly with the other two boys. My sister had to name three boys as well and by number 3 they were struggling :-)

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  10. Yes we struggle BIG TIME! It's awful. We already used the ONLY name we could agree on last time, so this time we're basically screwed. And if this baby is a girl, we're really screwed. Collins is actually my number one choice for a girl, I've never even thought of it for a boy but I love it too! My husband of course, like yours, has something to say about every single name, it's just ridiculous. And to top it off, he doesn't want to find out the sex of this baby either so that makes it even HARDER to come up with a name. Really dreading it! Love the name, glad you survived and came out with a great choice! :)

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  11. Collins is a great name!!
    It was really hard to choose a name for our daughter. So hard in fact, that we still hadn't agreed when I went into labor! My son, on the other hand, was beyond easy. It was a (first) name I had picked out for years and I was lucky enough that my hubby loved it as much as I did!

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  12. Such a cute name! My husband told me he wanted the name we chose for his son long before he was even a twinkle in our eye. My husband is a third, so I told him that it was his choice to carry on the name or not. I'm secretly thrilled he chose not to. Not because I don't like the name, but I'm not a huge fan of seconds, thirds, etc. The middle name is from my family, but we both agreed on it. We had both girl and boy names picked out before we knew. It wasn't too hard to pick since we have talked about it a billion times and our minds didn't change.

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  13. Love this!! We had such a hard time picking our son's name but I feel so good about it now :)

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  14. I am the complete opposite (I don't have kids, but I love names!) if I try really, really hard I can maybe think of one girls name that might be acceptable for any future daughters I have, maybe. Boy names are so much easier for me. I absolutely love Collins! and bonus points that you didn't even have to ugly cry to get to it!! :)

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  15. Great name!

    I love to play the name game, but when it comes to committing, I'm gun shy. We never say its 100% until the baby is born and we don't find out the sex until then either. My first is the 5th, we were pretty sure we had a boy name, but didnt know exactly what we'd call him until 2 weeks after he arrived. I didn't want him to go by the name his father and grandfather went by-we toyed with Max-a derivative of our last name and ultimately went with his middle name, Monroe. Our second, we were pretty sure we liked Robert Gray after my grandfather and husband's grandmother, but again we didn't commit until he showed up. For both of them, we had a list of about 5 girl names that could be combined, but no clear leanings on a front runner. Probably good we didn't end up with a girl that time because when we revisited the list for baby #2, we didn't like half of them anymore!

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  16. LOVE it. Collins is a nice, strong solid name. And yet not very common. I like that a lot. And the fact that he shares a monogram with Carter is just icing on the cake!

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  17. naming C was super easy for us. but i don't think it will ever be that way again!
    love collins. :) and the things that you have personalized are fabulous!
    can not wait to see him.

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  18. Yay! I love your baby name reveal posts. Can't wait to welcome Collins! Well, e-welcome unless... :)

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  19. Oh, I love his name!! So so beautiful! I can't wait tip he's here, he will be beautiful I am sure! Collins is a great name, and so unique as well. Happy for you guys!!

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  20. I love love love all three of your boys names! When it comes time, I'll just ask you to come and fight the fight for me - mkay?

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  21. I was "that girl" who had an ongoing scroll of names since I could spell, and it's funny looking back because my daughter's name wasn't on any of those lists. My husband came up with Emmalyn/"Emmy" and I was like, yep--that's it! & we were done. Now that I'm prego with Baby Girl #2, it's been so much harder & I'm having nightmares over it LOL I actually wrote about my dilemma here: http://www.katievanbrunt.com/2014/01/baby-girls-name.html (sorry, if that's tacky to leave a link, but you DID ask if we struggled with baby names--tehe) Anywho, we were the opposite of you--if we would have had a boy, we already had the name picked out! Also, if we had had a boy I wasn't going to name my son The Third, even though my hubs is a Jr., too! I just personally didn't like it. I think we've narrowed down this next chick's name to two names. Wish us luck! Thanks for revealing M3's name--it's perfect! & way to go on reusing monograms! woop!woop!

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  22. So cute! You'll have to tell me Carter and Maclane's middle names again. Is Carter's Michael? Is your brother's middle name Collin? I think I talked to you about naming the twins. We came up with baby a's name fairly quickly. His first name is my bil's middle name his middle name is both our dads' middle name. Baby b was the one we fought over. His middle name was quickly decided, my maiden name but I wanted a one syllable first name that had y's and e's. No go. Hubby fell in love with a name and that was it. I felt bad trying to talk him out of it and didn't want to change baby a's name just to match the name hubby picked. It ended up being my grandfather's birth last name which I didn't know until now but we like having names connected to family. We have family friends with the last name Chase and his middle name is Hubby's first name as tradition in his family.

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  23. I absolutely love all of your boys' names! And because if I get pregnant again, I'll more than likely remain a girl mom- I may be stealing "Delaney Pearl" from you because I wanted to name Kelsey "Delaney" but we couldn't figure out a middle name- and you obviously have a nack for these things! Xoxo

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  24. I love it! So unique!
    I had Tillie's name picked out as soon as we found out we were having twins. Both her first and middle name are family names so I wasn't budging on it. Thankfully, after saying it a million times, hubby finally came around and accepted it. ;) We were convinced we were going to have a boy and a girl so we were going round and round with the boy name. We finally decided on a boy name right before our gender reveal and lo and behold that darn u/s tech told us we were having 2 girls! It wasn't long before hubby came up with Tensley's name and I loved it so that's how we got TnT. :)

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  25. love it!!!! it's a bit different and that is why i love it!!! and yay for reusing monograms!!! ;)

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  26. Love it! =)
    We've nailed down a girl name, but when we discuss boy names its always hard for us to put together ones that just go well together. Luckily we aren't pregnant yet (or trying) so we have plenty of time.

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  27. Collins is actually growing on me. I like how the boys have names that are different and they won't be called Collins M for the rest of his life.

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  28. I love the name Collins! We have two boys and had a terrible time deciding their names. I had a laundry list of girl names, of course! We'll see!

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  29. I love the name Collins! We had a terrible time deciding our two boy names but I had a laundry list of girl names. Of course!

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  30. Aw. Love baby boy's name! Can't wait to "meet" him.

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  31. Such a great name, as usual with the M brothers! I didn't carry on the streak of naming our first born after my husband who is a jr. I wanted us to pick our own name, not have one handed to us. Cheers to breaking streaks and having baby (boys)! Can't wait to "meet" Collins Mason!!!

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  32. We had a much easier time coming up with girls' names, too, and so it would figure we're having a boy. Unlike you guys, I am the picky one and my husband comes up with name after name after name... unfortunately he picks them out of thin air, so it's a good thing our son isn't going to go by the name Halligan, Corrigan, or McCormack... he's Irish, can you tell?

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