We didn’t tell anyone the names because of Jewish superstition. So we had womb-names to call them by until they were born. Most people in my family had womb-names. They were things like “tater” not intended to be ordinary child-names.
Also, we’d picked out a girl’s name but not a boy’s name prior to the birth of our son. We didn’t actually know his name until a day after he was born.
I don’t know. All the babies I’ve seen, the three-month mark genuinely is when they really come into the world. They sort of wake up. Like, you can stick a six-week-old in a wrap sling and go out to lunch in a crowded restaurant and the baby will just sleep through the whole thing; all it cares about is that it’s surrounded by mama-smell, nothing else really exists. Try that with a four-month-old and the kid will be wide awake and wiggling and trying to see what’s going on.
I’ve never had anyone (apart from really close friends/family members) tell us the names they had picked out. We were the same both times I was pregnant. Partly because we didn’t want people giving us their opinions, partly because what if the baby was born and it didn’t look like the name we’d picked, and partly because it felt like tempting fate.
We called my son “the zygote,” even when he was long past the zygote stage. The we called him “Sven” (my husband has a very Scandinavian last name), but were never seriously considering that.
We were leaning towards Joshua as a name, but after he was born my husband decided he looked more like a John, so that’s what we went with.
I know people who announced a name and then changed their minds, and still received baby items engraved with the old name. Whoops!
You know we are just asking because we are pretending to be interested, right?
My experience with our two is that people were genually happy for us not finding out the sex. They would usually smile and tell a short stories about how they could never not find our, or how their sister didn’t find out and it was fun. We would smile and it would be a plesent little conversation. A small shared human experience.
Then the barest minimum of answers is the correct response right?
It doesn’t matter too much whether they reveal the name or not. It’s just that this was the first time I’ve run into the “we’ve picked but aren’t saying” and it happened twice within a week. Every time before it has been either “we haven’t decided” (truthful or not) or a reveal of the names, and I just was wondering if this was a new development or whether it was something I had somehow missed.
My parents were across the country from their parents during my Mom’s first pregnancy so they didn’t even know about my brother at all until he was born. 
Apropos of nothing, I do enjoy how modern memes have introduced certain ‘acceptable’ typos / alternate spellings / alternate words into use. I.e. babby, morans, regerts, etc - they’re now perfectly cromulent words.
I love “babby”.
When my sister became a grandmother, she texted me from the hospital all abuzz with the news. I asked her, "how is the babby doing?
She pointed out my misspelling, I insisted it was she who misspelled “baby”. She accepted my assertion and went on to text all of her friends and relatives about the new babby.
She was pissed.
Our two kids were born last decade. We didn’t tell anyone our kids’ names before they were born, but we seemed to be outliers at the time. I always thought it was weird to disclose the name beforehand. What if the name you picked out doesn’t fit the baby? Also, I didn’t care to invite any comments on the suitability of the names we had picked out. It’s easy for someone to say they don’t like the name before the baby’s born, harder to say it after it’s a done deal.
Didn’t some hippies in the 1960s not even name their children, instead waiting until the kids were old enough to name themselves? Or am I just recalling a joke from that period?
People get really stupid when it comes to babies as it is, and people get wound up over things that don’t concern them. When Airman and I had to fill out the birth certificate after the sprog was born, we had to make sure my mother wasn’t in the room because she would have insisted that he be named what she wanted, and we would have acquiesced to keep the peace.
So the less people know, the less drama can ensue. I’ve seen nasty arguments start over birth plans, breastfeeding vs. formula, choice of diapers, and of course, there’s the Big One, immunizations. With the exception of immunizations, these choices are personal and no one’s business but the parents’.
Hee. My parents had a couple of hippie friends who named their daughter something lost to the mists of time. When she was about two they decided her true name was Oona. So they did a whole renaming ceremony.
Isn’t that how the skier, Pikabo Street, got her name?
We chose not to know the sex of either of our 2 kids, and although we had boy & girl names picked, we didn’t tell anyone until after they were born.
My wife’s oldest sister, who is definitely used to being in charge and getting her way, asked about the names for our firstborn. When we wouldn’t tell her, she replied in a huff, “I don’t think I like that.” Out of nowhere, I channeled the Dread Pirate Roberts for my response: “Get used to disappointment.”
We never got any more guff from her about that name…
They tried to get her to, but eventually her folks had to pick one so she could get a passport. They chose the name of a local village, Picabo, Idaho. (Should rhyme, right? It doesn’t.)
There’s a stragety behind all of this.
This is such a good story I hope no-one minds me quoting it in its entirety. Of course, Amy’s parents should never have allowed her to become such a screw up.
With our firstborn we had picked out girls and boys names in advance and not told anyone what they were. Then four weeks before the birth, my stepsister-in-law named her newborn a very similar name to one of our choices. Fortunately, our baby was the opposite sex so there is no lingering regret. But it just goes to show it can work both ways - had we talked about the name we’d picked out (naturally, they hadn’t either), the whole issue would have been avoided.
Not necessarily. What if both of you had wanted “your” name so much you wouldn’t change it? (Unless you’re saying that had they mentioned they wanted “Clara”, say, and you wanted “Clare”, but then would have changed it to Emily.)