Our Baby's Name ...

A couple years ago, I met my friend, Rebecca, in Faneuil Hall for a cocktail after work. Instead of a white wine, however, she was drinking water and had big news: She and her husband, Chris, were having a baby! Like anyone would, I extended my congratulations and gave her a big hug. Then, like anyone, I asked about the baby's name.

"Oh, we're not talking about that," she said, in a uncharacteristically sharp tone.

Hmmm, I thought. That's odd. Rebecca is usually so kind and sweet. When my wife is pregnant with a baby, I'm going to tell everyone the name and get all sorts of opinions and feedback. 

As it turns out, as usual, Rebecca was much wiser than me.

When we started our baby journey back in December, Bridget and I jumped into the name conversation with both feet. Why wouldn't we? All of a sudden, you have this enormous privilege and responsibility to name another human being. You could pick something safe, like Michael, John, or Jennifer. Or something bizarre, like Apple, Suri, or North. (Honestly, is there anything worse than the Kardashians? Just go away.)

Before we knew if we were having a she or a he, we developed a short list of six male names and six female names. That, in itself, was a challenge. It's amazing how many associations people (including me) have with names. We had about 40 conversations that went like this:

Bridget: "What about Stephanie?"
Mike: "Nah, I dated a Stephanie."
Bridget: "If we can't use the name of girls you've dated, we won't have many choices!"
Mike: "This is fun. How about Ryan?"
Bridget: "No. There was a really annoying kid named Ryan in one of my English classes in college. How about Adele?"
Mike: "No, I'll just always think about that singer ..."

And on it went. Hours of this. But we finally settled on 12 names we both really liked. We then shared this list with our families.

Bad idea.

There were eye rolls. There were quizzical looks. There were snorts. There were quiet, almost inaudible noises. And there were comments:

• "Gray? You mean the color?"
• "You can't name it Natalie! I'm going to name my kid Natalie!"
• "How about Kathleen? That's a nice name." (Both our moms are named Kathleen, so this comment was shared no less than 314 times. In fact, Kathleen Kathleen Briddon was an actual suggestion.)

So when we found out we were having a baby girl in early April, we put the lid on the baby conversation with anyone outside of me, Bridget, and our dog, Oscar. (We trust him to stay quiet on the name we think is perfect and we'll share with everyone on our daughter's day of birth.) Actually, "put the lid" is not quite right. We slammed the lid. 

"Oh, we're not talking about that," we told our family and friends in an uncharacteristically sharp tone. 

That Rebecca. She's always right.