Choosing a Name for Your Baby

One of the most exciting parts of pregnancy is choosing a name for your soon-to-be-born baby. What factors should you consider when picking names, and what are some of the most popular baby names around? Find out!

Julie: Hi everyone, I'm Julie Clair. Welcome to Parents TV. You'll face a lot of decisions during pregnancy. And one of the more fun tasks is choosing a name. Kara and husband Dennis House offers some tips to help you sort through all of the options and pick a name that makes everybody happy. Dennis: Today we’re going to talk about one of the most important things you can do for your baby, give him or her a name. Kara: Yes, it's very stressful but we have to get down to the task because we’re just a couple of months out and the baby has to have a name before it leaves the hospital. Dennis: Yes she does, we got a couple of baby name books to talk about. This is your favorite. Kara: I picked up one with 10,000 names all around the world and then we also have the classic ones from Town and Country, something that passes the test of any society I guess. Dennis: You know popular names are always changing according to the federal government. The most popular names last year were as follows; for boys Jacob, Michael, Joshua, Mathew, Ethan, Andrew, Daniel, Anthony, Christopher and Joseph. Kara: And for girls, Emily, Emma, Madison, Abigail, Olivia, Isabela, Hannah, Samantha, Eva and Ashley. Some nice names out there but we've actually decided we don’t want to go with something too popular. We want to do something a little less common but not too unusual. Dennis: Yes, we don’t want one of those made-up names sort of like— Kara: You don’t like Apple? Another option besides just looking through your books and looking on the internet is your own family. Sometimes family names can be nice because you're carrying on a bit of history. Dennis: And so here we are to our family wall to get some inspiration for some names. But, you know while our relatives have fine names, some of them won't translate well for babies. We have Amoris, Aida, Arnold, Cresencio, Judith, Francis and Hilda. Kara: I'm sure Hilda is going to work. Dennis: There is one family name that I do like though, my beloved grandmother Phoebe. And it was also her mother’s name and her grandmother’s name. Kara: I guess I can feel the ties of history pulling, not a bad name. Something you consider but if you ant agree on it, you know family names also make nice middle names. Dennis: Good idea. So, once you gone through the baby name books and the family tree sit down and make a list. Kara: They suggest you should make—I get a list of 10 names, you get a list of 10 names and we come together, see if we have any of them in common and w can start chipping away from there. Another piece of advice, you don’t have to follow but we found the best thing, keep your name a secret because if your relatives are opinionated like ours, you don’t want the name tainted for good or for bad. Dennis: Yeah and once the baby is born the grandmothers, the aunts, the uncles, they’re going to love the name and if they don’t, well they are not going to tell you. Kara: No, at least not to your face. Julie: That is really good advice. It's exactly what my husband and I did. And in case you're wondering, Kara and Dennis recently welcomed a baby girl named Helena. Congratulations to you both. Thanks for watching Parents TV, your source for the best information for your growing family.