Can you live with a middle name? Can DH?

Kate, for baby names, once you both decide on one, make sure you agree on the spelling of it. When Mom was pregnant with me, they had agreed on Kathryn. However, they had only said the name, not written it down, and Mom was thinking it'd be Katherine. It was only when Dad was sitting next to her in the labor room and was writing "Kathryn" on a piece of paper that she realized he was thinking something different. She ended being fine with his spelling, and that's what I got, but it was a surprise to her!

(BTW, if I had been a boy, I would have been Daniel.)

My parents totally tried to make me lie about the souce of my name when I was back this last time. They're pretending the cute story is true. However, I think someone you met three minutes ago because they came to visit your mother in her hospital bed should not insist on knowing the provenance of your name if you brush it off. That's rude.

Can you live with a middle name? Can DH?

Maybe? It's certainly an option. Apparently it's become a fairly common middle name lately, but not so common as a first name. I feel like we have lots of great contenders for middle names, though -- it's the first names that are hard!

Names are really hard. The good news is that once the kid is born, you'll wonder how you could ever have considered naming him/her anything else.

My brother and XSIL end up changing my nephew's first name when he was bout 4 months old.

He went from being Evan to Evander (btw my XSIL had never heard of Evander Holyfield). At the time my parents weren't on board with the whole name change thing but now it seems weird that he was anything but Evander.

Names are really hard. The good news is that once the kid is born, you'll wonder how you could ever have considered naming him/her anything else.

This. Although I will say, try to make what you're going to call the kid what his/her name is, unless there are obvious nicknames. Jake is actually John on his birth certificate, after a long, tedious argument with S., and it's a pain in the ass to explain that his name isn't Jacob.

How does he feel about Paypal, Erin?

It's been around long enough that he's okay with it. And I'm fine with him being conservative with on-line financials -- he's cautious, not a Luddite.

I'm kind of the same way about DV control issues in relationships -- you work with something long enough, you tend to apply that lens to stuff a bit more stringently. Sometimes you have to rein yourself in a bit, or ease into the waters.

ION, if I had been a boy, I would have been Clark.

Names are really hard. The good news is that once the kid is born, you'll wonder how you could ever have considered naming him/her anything else.

That's certainly what I'm counting on!

Although I will say, try to make what you're going to call the kid what his/her name is, unless there are obvious nicknames. Jake is actually John on his birth certificate, after a long, tedious argument with S., and it's a pain in the ass to explain that his name isn't Jacob.

I had a roommate once, whose father insisted (when she was just an embryo) that if she were a girl, she'd be named Mary but they would *call* her Molly. (I have no idea why they couldn't just name her Molly if that's what they were going to call her.)

So she was, and they did -- except ONLY her father (who came up with the Name Plan in the first place) is the only person alive who calls her Mary, contrary to his own plan.

Oooookay.

And then there's Tim's uncle Jerome, who is 70-something and has been called Pete for about 65 years. And his middle name isn't Peter, either. It was just one of those things. One of those *inexplicable* things, since Pete is not really an obvious nickname for Jerome.