What's in a name?

One of the most important things for parents-to-be to decide is the name of their child. It's a label for life, it has to suit your personalities, your surname, not spell anything rude with the other initials, sound unique but not too weird so they aren't picked on at school... there's such a long list of things to think about.

For Ste and I, this part is easy. Having been together for almost nine years, we have considered baby names for a long time, even before we were planning on starting a family. We compared our likes and dislikes and picked names for a boy and a girl a few years ago which we still love to this day. You never know what could happen over the next five months but we're pretty sure we've picked two great names. Nice to say and to write, with cute short versions if they really insist on not being called their full name when they're in their teens. Both work well with our surname - O'Hanlon - and we think they are special enough without being wacky, what-the-hell-were-you-thinking kind of names.

Even if we did choose something weird and wonderful, what would the harm be? Names are so subjective which is why we aren't revealing the names until bubs arrives. After all, you can hardly turn around when the baby is here and say 'what did you name him / her that for?' can you?

The subject of names has also become a discussion for us about what we and our parents would all like to be called. I don't know about you, but I had a mum / mummy whereas Ste called his mom / mommy. Only a small difference but it does matter as I can't imagine being anything other than a mum / mummy.

As for grandparents, my mum would like to be Nanna (as that was what I called her mum) and I have assigned my dad Gramps. I just think it sounds so cute! Ste's dad will be Grandad and his mum wants to be called Nanny. None of them feel old enough to have such an old sounding title but I am sure they will get used to it when the time comes!