One of the most transcendental decisions that are made in the incipient role of father and mother, when the baby is still in the womb, is deciding the name of your son or daughter. Trying to imagine how it will be, discarding all those that you don’t like or that remind you of someone you don’t like ( because let’s not deny it, it’s something we all do ), and reaching consensus is not an easy job.
When we finally have a clear winner, something you don’t expect may happen: your family doesn’t like it and throws overboard the illusion that jumps out of your chest when announcing your baby’s name. That was just what happened to me.
The name that my partner and I chose was non-negotiable
After a long time trying to be parents, believing for months that he was a boy and a routine ultrasound revealed that everyone was wrong, he made us start from scratch with the search for the name. We had already spent days after days trying to find the perfect name (as a child, of course), so we decided to do it in another way: each one would write a list with their 10 favorites and they would have a week to do it . At the end of that time each one would reveal it and we would observe if any of them coincided or at least we found some similarity.
And what happened? Well, there was a name that was repeated on both lists. Obviously when we saw it, our faces lit up and I cried with emotion because it was the one I loved… a name that, by the way, I had never mentioned. That’s what our daughter’s name is.
And the drama came
When we told my family, a very close relative whom I love very much threw her hands in her head and tactlessly told me not to do that to my daughter . Soon I knew the feeling of guilt from an unexpected source and I felt it like the needle that bursts the balloon of joy. However, at that precise moment, she erased with a stroke of the pen any doubt she might have had regarding the name in question: it had to be called that because before I was born she made me see that she would be a mother lion who would not back down from anything she was convinced of and that had to do with her and her upbringing.
The day he met her, that person burst into tears, told me that he was the most beautiful baby he had ever seen and that he couldn’t have a more perfect name . I don’t know if at that moment she relived that episode or if she still remembers what happened, but now, seeing it with perspective and after having received thousands of unsolicited opinions and advice during two pregnancies with their corresponding postpartums, honestly, it doesn’t seem so serious anymore. .
Finally, a piece of advice: if one day they tell you the name that a person is going to give their baby and you don’t quite like it, before saying anything think that it has been chosen with enthusiasm, and if you are expecting a baby, never reveal his name unless you have it very clear because there will always be voices around you that will make you doubt.
