Girls Names

Another installment of my lifelong obsession...baby names...

I have always had three, and only three names on my girls LOVE list. In order, they are

Shaughnessy

Kennedy

Laken

It was decided that we would use Kennedy first, since it was my maiden name. Laken was stricken from the list by Brian before we even got married. It's still on MY list, but not on OUR list. When I was expecting Brooks, Brian veto'd Shaughnessy, which was a huge disappointment to me. What would we call a girl then? We began making lists of names that we could both live with/liked to some sort of extent.

Some on MY like-list:

Tallasee - Tally

Mattea - Tea

Brittain

Cassidy - Cassy

Zephyr

Some on HIS like-list:

Kimberly

Cassidy

Jodie 

Téa

My list was MUCH longer than his, I've only listed a few here. For awhile we settled on Téa, but then Brian decided he didn't want to use that one. We literally brought the Baby Name book and our lists to the hospital with us (which is murderously last minute for a name-planner like me). In the few days before the baby was born, we tentatively settled on Cassidy Jordyn (Cassy). Basically because they were the only names we could say yes to at least semi-happily, without an argument! But the baby name book came along just in case. God knew all our disagreement was for nothing, since we had a perfect little boy!

But that sure was tough!! On our lists, we basically just crossed referenced to see if anything lined up. I hope I never have to do that again, it wasn't fun!...But it was productive. It lead us to a happy medium between some of my crazy choices, and some of his more traditional ones. 

We've (he has) come to terms with Shaughnessy now, so chances are we'll never have a Cassidy in our family, but we came close!

I don't know what the art of compromise is with names, precisely, but there definitely is one. It could be different for each family. I know one family who each take turns naming the baby. Works for them! I wouldn't choose that for me, because then I could end up with "my perfect name" on one hand, and absolutely "no say" on the other hand. I prefer to come to a meeting in the middle and try to make something work for everybody. It's not always easy. Especially for the spouse of an opinionated name person, like me! He bears it well:-)