A Rose by Any Other Name...

At the risk of sounding like a complete freak I’m going to share something about myself here. As a child, I had imaginary children. Now, I know a lot of kids have imaginary friends but I was the six-year-old who had imaginary pregnancies, imaginary births and a whole houseful of imaginary spawn. At one point it got so bad that my favourite pastime was to pour over old catalogues until I found models that could possibly be my future children and collage them into family portraits and eventually timelines that stretched across our living room floor and scanned over fifty years of births, deaths, weddings and graduations. My imaginary children had personalities, hopes and dreams and, always a stickler for realism I’d throw in the odd genetic disease or stint in rehab just to keep them on their toes. More important then their imagined life though was their imaginary names. I even went so far as to name my imaginary husbands and practice the potential surname choices (should I use a hyphen, take his name, or, as became common practice when I hit grade three, abandon the whole husband concept and go the route of immaculate conception ending up a functioning single mother of ten / paediatrician / artist?). I found the concept of naming children fascinating. The power! The influence! The sheer fun of combing through baby name books! It was like a drug and I was hooked.

Fast forward to today and the thought of naming a baby has become the bane of my existence. Of course, I had my favourite names long since chosen and had always assumed they would just be given out in some methodical order as spawn actually starting shooting from my loins. Somehow though, the minute I found out I was pregnant, I became panicky about having to actually give the baby inside of me a name months down the road. I mean, what right did I have anyway? Thus began a long existential debate about entitlement and imposing my personality and choices on a baby who might become someone completely different then I imagined. I went in circles. I had nightmares about birth certificates and baby announcements. What if I unknowingly saddled the kid with a horrible name? What if I didn’t realise possible associations or rhyming words? What if I offered up a smart kid name and ended up birthing a jock? The possibilities for disaster were endless. Then I realised, before I got too far ahead of myself I should probably talk to Jose.

In one of the many naïve assumptions I have made throughout my life, I assumed Jose wouldn’t care what we named the baby. However, after presenting my top girl and boy name choices and waiting for the expected casual agreement, I was shocked to hear the utter disgust in his voice. It became clear immediately that this was going to be tougher then I thought. At my twenty-week ultrasound the doctor surmised that the uber-fetus was most likely a girl. Not seeing any “boy parts” he promised me confirmation at my thirty-two week ultrasound and sent me on my way. Again naively, Jose and I spent all of our time focussing on names for our little chanchita (the thought of a chanchito now firmly out of our minds). After literally going name by name through a thousand page baby book and looking at no end of online sites we finally settled on a name he put forward the first night I arrived while we were walking along the beach in Punta Hermosa. I’m not gonna lie, I don’t love the name, but I got sucked in by his accent and the way he smiled every time he called the baby by it when he talked to my belly. Plus, the name we finally chose matches the picture I have in my head of the baby. It’s not what I’d always imagined, but somehow, it fits the baby we made together… I think.

Of course, the end of January hit and I went in for my final ultrasound and the response to my eager insistence on gender confirmation was a chuckle and the response “the baby is being shy today”. So of course, it was back to the drawing board. As tough as choosing a girl name had been, choosing a name for a boy is certifiably impossible. Thankfully, throughout all the baby name drama, we both agreed that the name should be short and unique (no Jose Miguel juniors here). However, beyond that, Jose and I couldn’t have more different opinions. You can blame a difference in culture, since it is true that a surprising amount of the names I came up with sound like dirty words en español, or the difficulties of long distance, but the truth is we’re just different. As it stands today, if the uber-fetus does end up with an uber-penis, he will not have a name and yes, this stresses me out. Unfortunately, the choosing of a boy name happens to be coinciding with my ultra-sensitive-emotional phase so that’s just the way it goes. Worse case scenario I might have to pull out my old timelines and gaze into the eyes of my imaginary children until a name jumps out at me. Until then, I stand firm in my assertion that if nothing else my son will not be named Thor. Jose may have been half joking when he suggested it, but don’t pretend you’re not all on my side now. Ahem.

PS. The Baby Name Bible by Pamela Redmond Satran and Linda Rozenkrantz is amazing. Go buy it. Now.