Phew! Finding a name for your baby is not an easy task. It took us months before we finally had a complete set of names for a boy and a girl. It took some time to find some good names, but the hardest part was definitely the part where we both had to agree to one name we both liked.

Comforting to know that we are not alone. Finding a name both partners like, seems to be a stumbling block for many parents. Giving someone a name that he or she will always carry around, is a very special task you may only be able to do once, right? Since it's such a very sensitive subject, everyone will eventually chooses their own tactics to dodge this problem:

• Divide the decision-making process.
  One comes up with a name for the boy, another one for the girl. You could also set the rule that both should have the right to veto a really bad name. But then you have a problem with the definition of a bad name.
• Search extensively and keep firing names at each other until there's a name you both like.
  
• Give your child more than one name.
  As an atheist I have only a first name and a family name. The region where I live is Catholic and most Catholics give their children extra names. Because I don't want to be part of the Catholic culture, I resented the idea of giving our children extra names at first. Now I see it as a great way to still use that fantastic name your partner didn't like.
  
• Give up the fight and let the other partner decide what the baby should be called.
  Unless you didn't care for choosing baby name in the first place, this would be a bad option. Always go for a win-win situation as it is one of the 7 habits of highly effective families.

I almost chose the last option, but my wife didn't take advantage of it. So we pulled ourselves to a win-win situation.

What makes a good name? Well, that's of course a decision you have to make yourself. But this is what we kept in mind while looking for baby names:

• Avoid spellings that are different from the obvious. Like "Crista" instead of "Christa". My wife always has to spell out how her name and in many letters sent to her the name is misspelled.
• A good name ideally sounds good in combination with the surname. An alliteration is always a strong technique. Like Clark Kent and Lois Lane.
• Make the initials easy to remember (we tried, but partially failed in doing that).
  
• A personal issue: the name should be pronounceable in English.
  Ok, this may look like a non-issue, since I say this on an English blog, but I'm from the Netherlands. I have a name that is hard to pronounce in English. And on top of that unpronounceable in any Roman language.
  I believe English is the new Esperanto and I'd like to promote English where I can. Besides that: the influence of the English language is felt everywhere, especially in a small country like The Netherlands. So an English name is important in this borderless world.

So what are good places to find baby names? Well, this is what I had bookmarked:

• NameVoyager: Man! That's a good online application! It's a graph that shows the popularity of all the names in America from the 1880s to 2005! It's not the most practical for power searching, but it looks great. You need Java to view it :(
  If you don't know what Java is, just try the link. If you see a graph in the page, it works.
  
• BabyNamesWorld.com: This is more to the liking of power searchers. You can search for a specific name length. I like the search feature that looks for specific letters in a name. It has an impressive list of non-American names, but don't let it fool you. I searched for Dutch names in the database, but there were just 20 Dutch names in the database. Nobody in The Netherlands will call his/her baby "Wagner", since it's a German name.
• Parenthood: Here you can find a name beginning and/or ending with a particular letter.
• Social Security Online: What? The US Social Security Administration? What do they have to do with baby names? Well, they have a list of most popular 1000 names of the 2000s through 2005. The data is based on all names from Social Security card applications for births that occurred in the US.
• Babynames.com. What's in a name :)
• Kindernamen.nl: I'd prefer an English name, but if you want an exotic name, you can always choose a name from the top 100 Dutch names.
  
• Still haven't found that perfect name? Then browse through all the links on DMOZ Baby names directory. That should satisfy your need for baby names. Otherwise you just have to lower your standards :)

...and finally two offline tips:

• Pay attention to the names that you see and hear in the media. We found a great name that way. And the end of a movie can get very interesting all of a sudden :)
• Make your own name. We combined the names of our two rabbits (who themselves were named after 2 Star Wars-characters), which resulted in a beautiful and more important unique name. I even Googled the name and although it sounds like a very normal name, Google couldn't find anything.
  

Labels: baby names