Naming Baby. Difficulty: Asian

If someone told me a year ago that I'd have a hard time coming up with a name for the baby, I would have laughed.

Most of my stuff have names (the personification keeps me from losing them). I think I come up with good MAGNIFICENT names. Nay -  I've convinced myself that I have a PhD in naming shit.

Until the 5th month's ultrasound, we were absolutely sure baby was going to turn out female. And ever since my first doll, I've wanted a real live daughter. You know, a mini-me. Someone who'd repeat your life and not make that left turn, not skip that class, or actually finish piano lessons, etc etc. Projective identification anyone?



The partner wanted a girl too. He wanted someone to take care of, someone small and cuddly forever. You sure you don't actually want a teacup poodle bub?

I don't know if I want to squish it or eat it or both.

But yeah, I did mention earlier that I've had it relatively easy. My female relatives all said they didn't notice anything out of the ordinary during pregnancies with girls, while they'd kill for chocolate when they were expecting boys. I've had no such cravings.

Err... no specific cravings.

And I have no dark blotches, no facial mutations, no extra body hair (anymore and I'd turn into a Thunder Cat), no stretch marks even. It must be a girl right?

So we planned to name accordingly.  We didn't want anything too common. Imagine calling out to the kid in the playground and getting the wrong one. "You're not my Alexandra! Go back to your name stealing nanay!$#%#$3^%6&^^$4%^"

There's a whole bunch of pinoy naming traditions that ensure "unique names" tho:

For example, we have compounded parent's names - couple names that go way beyond their shelf life by becoming children's names. i.e. Leomar (Leoncio and Marjorie); Rodelyn (Rodel and Lynlyn); Rosan (Rolando and Susan);  Jomari (Jesus' name had he been born Filipino). I bet if there was a Pinoy name database, these names would top the list.

And although it's not exclusively Filipino to name a kid after an ancestor, at one point in our history, people took names from the English Dictionary according to the first letter, regardless of what the word meant. According to Ninang Zyra (named after Zygote and Maria... KIDDING), there's famous old Lola Tuli from Bohol, whose real name is Circumcision.

The partner and I are modern Filipinos - meaning, we grew up on American television (Yay for resurgent colonization) and we find these traditions too tacky to abide. The late Ninang Sam warned me against getting a unique name too, saying it would get the kid in unnecessary trouble. I found an article debunking this, but she went on permanent sleep mode on me before I could link it to her. The spoilsport.

Instead of burdening the child with Christima, or Cayetana, we turned to something we both liked - graphic novels.

We're both big fans of Alan Moore's Promethea, But we already named one of our cats "Sofia". Thank goodness too, it turns out Sophia is pretty popular these days .

The partner wanted her first name to start with an "L" to match the family name. Like Lois Lane. We're both big on the Beatles, so Lucy was top on the list. And since Lucy was too much of a nickname to me than a real name, I suggested we name her after the chemical that make glow worm's butts shine: Luciferin.

Yeah yeah, we know. Kid growing up in a predominantly Catholic country named after The Adversary will surely be scarred for life.

Reminds me of one of those round table discussions that happen after a whole night of Dungeons and Dragons:
Jian: When I have a son, I shall name him LORD ZOLTAR!
RJ: But your kid will hate you!
Jian: Ah yes, but I can say I am hated by LORD ZOLTAR!

If we deliberately name the kid something people are already prejudiced against, it can go two ways:

Either people will get over themselves and realize that not everyone in this country subscribes to the idea of its banality and all things attached, and that its actually a neat sounding name.

OR OR OR OR

The kid will live with hostility and vow revenge on anyone who ever laughed at her beautiful name. She'll turn into a ruthless dominatrix who will inspire fear and metal songs in her wake on her road to world domination. Unless a white knight (some other filipino kid born to saner parents who stuck to the f*ckin' calendar and named him after his birthday saint) comes to slay the demoness, nothing will be able to get in her way. Self fulfilling prophecy.

But before we could turn our child into a social experiment, we found someone who doesn't love Lucy. My mom. "I never met a nice Lucy, and it sounds too much like Lucifer."

Busted.

Dolores came a close second, and the nickname would have been lovely. But if you haven't already inferred, "Lola" means grandmother here, so no luck there.

We had a whole list of wonderful runner ups: Lianna (Lyanna Stark); Lien (chinese for lotus); Luthien (Tinuviel, from the Silmarillion); Luna (the moon) etc etc.

And then this happened:

That's not a girl giving me the finger. I called the father and his voice cracked a little when he said "We're having a boy?"

I'm sensing projective identification will be happening after all.

This made naming baby a thousand times harder. The double L wasn't as cute anymore (more like we couldn't decide on an L name), so we now had the whole alphabet to choose from. To make things harder, we decided to pick a name without much history (to avoid going back to Lucifer).

But nothing felt right. Either the good names were already taken, or they just didn't FEEL right.

I'd run a name by the partner just to see what it sounded like.

Nemo? After Jared Leto's character in Mr. Nobody? Sounds cool, but nope.
Oscar? After the lead in Enter the Void? Nope.
Sebastian? After the crab? Nada.

I thought that maybe I was giving it too much thought too early, while I imagined my usually chill partner smug and secretly laughing at me for my pertinacity. Then I caught him hunched up in deep thought one night and then murmuring "Lisuda ui" ("So difficult"). Found out later, he was trying to think of names too.

Haha, naning.

Finally, daddy-o admitted he'd never ever considered the possibility of reproducing, so he had never ever given any thought to the naming process.

I told him to just think of the kid as a soul we would be reintroducing to the world. Someone who'd be a whole person all by himself, but one we're privileged to hand tools to, and one such tool was a name. Father was quiet for a while, and then said "I know this guy named ____..."

DINGDINGDINGDINGDING!!! WE HAVE A WINNER!!!

I've heard the name before, used with girls usually, but rarely used at all. But it's a legit name, it means something we both value and it's awesome. Besides, it FELT right.

Now all we have to do is wait for the kid to pop out and see if it matches his face.