At Christmas my in-laws gave me the following book to help my wife and I search for the name for our unborn child.

The first challenge was where the hell to do I start? The best course of action was straight brute force in the end. My wife and I each picked a colored highlighter and in our free time we are going through the book front to back highlighting anything that sticks out. I took the approach that Malcolm Gladwell discusses in his book ‘Blink‘ of going with my gut reaction. As I skimmed over the thousands of names, I trusted my ‘gut’ reaction. During my search two things happened which I wasn’t expecting.

The names I picked for a boy in general had ancient roots, and deep meaning. I have a hard time convincing my wife and family with some of the possibilities due to certain ethnic groups having a ‘claim’ to it. On the other hand, many of the names I chose for a girl were historic, but generally common.

Many of the names I chose, both for a boy or a girl, could make the child an easy target once they start to socialize with other children. My philosophy is that no matter what, kids will find a way to turn a name into a put down. I don’t want the possibility of simple name calling to restrict the options we have when it comes to naming our child.

As it stands now, I have made it all the way through the book and picked out all the names that just ‘felt’ right. My wife is almost through the boys section, and should have the girls done sometime next week. Once we have picked out our choices, I plan on pulling out all of the highlighted names and saving it in a digital manner. Coming to a final choice will be the true challenge though. I have been thinking that the best way would be to whittle the listing down to a meaningful set, and just wait until that beautiful day our child’s comes into the world. It is my hope that on that day, upon looking at my child’s face a name will naturally be chosen.