Baby names

One of the fun things about the 10 hour drive each way was having time with Anthony to go through the book of 55,000 baby names loaned to us by a friend. No, we didn't get through all of them, but we did do enough that we now have 2 tentative names picked out for each gender.

The girls' names we've actually had in mind since before we were pregnant - when we were naming our dog in summer, we came across a couple girls' names that we both really liked and decided were more baby-worthy than dog-worthy. So that part was easy. First and middle names for each, and they'd work great for twin girls as well.

As for the boys, we couldn't think of any names that both of us liked, so it was on to the baby name book for ideas. We had talked about a few things being important to us in a name, such as sounding good with our last name (of course - but this eliminates 99.9% of one-syllable first names), not sounding too old-mennonite-ish (i.e., i do NOT want a little Jake Epp or John Epp or Cornelius Epp running around, not like any of those names were an option - but it does limit the Biblical names a lot, as that's so common in the mennonite tradition). But we did like the idea of somehow working our heritage into the name - between the two of us we have Swedish, German/Russian mennonite, Ukranian and English, so names with their roots in those traditions are good. We also liked the idea of honoring past relatives (i.e., great grandparents and back) if one of their names somehow fit into the picture.

Anyways, after a bit of time with the boys' section of the baby book, we now have 2 boys' names that we really like that fit some of the above criteria. Unlike the girls, they both contain the same middle name, one that we had thought of and decided on long before coming up with a first name for the boys' names.

Of course, our ideas might change in the next 6 months - maybe someone we know will have thought of a similar name for their new baby, maybe we'll look back and say "What were we thinking when we picked that?" (hopefully before we name the kid if that's the case), or we may meet the kid and decide that the names we had considered simply don't fit.

But it's nice having some options lined up already at this point. Of course, each of us likes a different name of the two for each gender better at this point, but at least both of us are happy with the 4 options as they stand now.