Picking my sons name was probably the toughest decision I have ever had to make. By choosing your kids name you are defining their identity for the rest of their life.

My wife and I talked about this before we started throwing out ideas. We wanted a name that was unique (but not too outrageous), cool, and a name that would suit him no matter what his age, no matter what his personality was like, and one that would make a good first impression.

If I named my son Poindexter everyone would have assumed that he will be a big geeker sporting a pocket protector and a laugh that was heard on Revenge of The Nerds.

The name John is just to common. He would get lost in the millions of other Johns in the world. I wanted the name to be unique.

The name Elmer sounds like an old man to me. I picture Elmer Fudd or some old farmer pulling a plow with his team of horses… How could a baby be named Elmer?

The “No Way!” List

The first thing my wife and I did was sit down and discuss what names would definitely not work. At this point we did not know whether our baby was going to be a boy or girl, so we were picking a name for each sex.

The first thing my wife said was, “No names of ex-girlfriends!” Well, this ruled out a whole three names! 🙂

I didn’t like the name William. It just reminded me of this kid from school that every one picked on. This name was definitely off of the list!

And of course we listed names of people that we knew that gave us any bit of negative emotion. Some were drunks, some we have had bad experiences with, and some were just plain assholes! I couldn’t affiliate my new baby with anything negative!

Brainstorming The “Maybe” List

The next thing we did was just start throwing out names and either hating them, or putting them into a “maybe” category.

I used many different methods of coming up with names. I would think of people I knew, people I have met, and the easiest method… going though the alphabet.

I started with the letter “A” and started throwing out names. Then went to “B” and all the way to “Z”. End the end we had a few names on the “maybe” list, but were still undecided.

Then I made a joke. I said, “How about Ace?…Ace in the hole!”, as I pointed at her crotch area laughing. 😉 She told me how gross I was and how that wasn’t even a tad bit funny.

Well, in the end the name stuck. It was unique, cool, would fit him no matter what his personality, and would leave a good first impression! We loved it, but would everyone else? I’ll write about this in one of the following posts…

In the end, whatever you name your kid is your choice. Come up with your own criteria for picking a name, and make sure that both you and your wife agree on the name. And remember have fun with it! But also take into consideration that your baby will have this name for the rest of his life! How would you like to be named Waldo? I didn’t think you would, so please don’t name your kid that!

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