My Struggle Choosing A Baby Girl Name

I was thirty-four hours post-C-section, wearing those horrific mesh hospital underwear and a nursing bra that smelled entirely like sour milk and desperation, just staring at this blank government form. The birth certificate lady was hovering by the door holding a clipboard like a weapon. My husband, Mark, was aggressively chewing a stale hospital bagel in the corner, trying not to make eye contact with me. We had a baby. A very loud, very red, six-pound baby. But we didn't have a baby name.

I mean, we had lists. We had a Google Doc that was color-coded by origin and syllable count because I'm clinically insane. We had scoured every corner of the internet. If you type "baby names girl" into a search bar at three in the morning when pregnancy insomnia hits, you'll literally be assaulted by thousands of articles telling you that whatever you pick is going to ruin your kid's life. But sitting there in that freezing hospital room, holding this tiny swaddled potato, every single name felt wrong. Like, who gave us the authority to label another human being for the rest of eternity? We can't even agree on what to watch on Netflix.

The whole vintage playground situation

I wanted something unique, obviously. We all do. We all want our kid to be the cool one. But I was so completely paralyzed by this weird trend where millennial parents are just recycling the registry from an 1890s tuberculosis ward. Every single kid at Leo’s preschool is named like they survived the Great Depression. There are three Hazels, two Mabels, and an Eloise in his gym class. Which are beautiful! They're. But it feels like there’s this unspoken pressure to find a name that sounds like a rustic aristocrat who makes her own sourdough starter.

Mark, bless him, was zero help. His entire contribution to the baby names girls list was just listing his favorite female action movie characters. Ripley. Sarah Connor. I was like, honey, she's going to be an accountant or something, not fighting xenomorphs in space. Anyway, the point is, you spend nine months gestating and building up this massive expectation for who this person is going to be, and then they come out looking like a squished Winston Churchill and you're supposed to just confidently write "Aurelia" on a piece of paper.

The clothes I bought for a nameless child

I remember looking over at her little plastic hospital bassinet thing. I had packed this tiny, ridiculously soft Flutter Sleeve Organic Cotton Baby Bodysuit in my hospital bag for her coming home outfit. It’s easily my absolute favorite thing Kianao makes, like I literally bought it in three different earthy colors before she was even born because the ruffles are just stupidly cute but the organic cotton is actually stretchy enough that you don't feel like you're breaking their little fragile bird arms trying to wrestle them into it. I held it up against my giant postpartum belly, looking at this nameless child, and just cried. Because hormones. And because the nurses kept calling her "Baby Girl" and it was starting to sound like a weird permanent nickname.

If you're currently nesting and completely freaking out about the naming process, maybe take a mental break and just browse some neutral organic baby clothes that work for literally any identity your kid ends up having. It helps lower your blood pressure, I promise.

My highly chaotic naming tests

Here's something nobody tells you about picking a name until you're in the thick of it. You have to put it through these completely unhinged real-world simulations. I literally stood in my backyard at 7 AM on a Tuesday, extremely pregnant, yelling random names at a squirrel on my fence to see if they sounded stupid when I yelled them across a playground. "MARGOT, GET DOWN FROM THERE." "SLOANE, WE ARE LEAVING." My neighbor definitely thought I was hallucinating.

Then you've to do the initial test because middle schoolers are vicious. We almost went with Penelope Iris. We loved Penelope. We loved Iris. Mark's last name starts with G. I'll let you do the math on those initials. Thank god my sister texted me "P.I.G." before we committed to it or I'd have had to pay for therapy for the next twenty years. Oh god.

Speaking of the whole gender thing, there's a huge shift right now toward historically male names for girls, which I actually love. We strongly considered Rowan and Quinn. I’m heavily the kind of mom who completely bypasses the pink aisle anyway. When Maya was a newborn, I swaddled her almost exclusively in the Colorful Dinosaur Bamboo Baby Blanket because why wouldn't a girl like a T-Rex? Honestly, it's just a really good blanket because the bamboo is super breathable and doesn't hold the smell of sour breastmilk as badly as polyester does, which is the real victory. Girls like dinosaurs. Boys like dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are cool.

The fear of the top ten list

My biggest fear, and I know this is so cliché, was picking a name that was too popular. I looked at the Social Security Administration list and almost had a panic attack seeing Olivia and Emma at the top. But my pediatrician actually said something that totally changed my perspective on this. We were talking about it at Leo's checkup, and he pointed out that the naming pool is just so much wider now than it was when we were kids. Like, in the 80s, every other girl was named Jessica or Ashley. Today, even the number one name represents a way smaller percentage of total babies born. He basically told me that if I loved a name, I should just use the damn name because the odds of her being one of five Olivias in her kindergarten class are genuinely mathematically way lower now.

Which was great advice that I immediately ignored because my brain is broken.

If you're looking for ways to plaster the name you finally choose all over your house, Kianao has these Gentle Baby Building Block Sets. They’re fine. They have numbers and little fruits on them and they're made of this soft squishy rubber. Honestly, I mostly like them because when my seven-year-old, Leo, inevitably hucks one at Maya's head while she's playing, nobody ends up bleeding and I don't have to spend my afternoon in the emergency room. So, you know. Solid parenting win.

What happened with the clipboard lady

So there we're. Hour thirty-four. The clipboard lady clears her throat. Mark finally stops chewing his bagel and looks at me. And I just blurted out "Maya." It wasn't on the color-coded spreadsheet. It wasn't a vintage aristocrat or an action hero. It was just a name that popped into my head while I was staring at her little squished face. Mark smiled, which is rare for him before his third cup of coffee, and said, "Yeah. Maya."

And then I spent the next three months absolutely convinced we made the wrong choice.

My therapist told me that 'name regret' is seriously a super common thing, which makes total sense when you realize your hormones are basically staging a violent coup in your brain for the entire fourth trimester. She said it takes most moms a few months to genuinely associate their weird little screaming newborn with the beautiful human name they picked out. And she was right. By month four, she was just... Maya. And I couldn't imagine her being a Ripley or an Eloise.

Okay, I need to go microwave my coffee for the fifth time today because someone is screaming about a missing blue sock, but if you're still spiraling about names and nurseries, go check out our baby blankets collection to wrap your nameless little potato in while you figure it out.

Messy questions about naming your kid

What if I accidentally pick a name that becomes super popular next year?

Honestly? Let it go. You literally can't control pop culture. You could name your kid something incredibly obscure today, and tomorrow Taylor Swift could drop an album with that name as the title track and boom, it's the number one name in America. If you love how it sounds when you say it out loud fifty times a day (because you'll), just use it.

How the hell do I politely reject my mother-in-law's naming suggestions?

You don't. You just smile, say "Oh, wow, Brenda, that's definitely going on the list!" and then you never, ever bring it up again. If she pushes, blame your partner. "Mark and I just really want to wait to meet her before we decide!" Lie through your teeth. It's your baby, your body, your choice. Brenda had her turn in 1985.

Is baby name regret honestly real or am I just going crazy?

Oh my god it's SO real. I stared at Maya for a solid twelve weeks thinking I should have named her Clara. Your brain is swimming in adrenaline and sleep deprivation, and suddenly calling this tiny alien by a human name feels like playing pretend. Give it at least six months. Once they start smiling and developing an actual personality, the name usually just clicks into place.

Can I legally change it if it really doesn't fit?

Yes! During the first year, it's seriously surprisingly easy in most places. It involves some paperwork and a small fee, but it's not the massive legal hurdle it's for an adult. I know a mom who changed her daughter's name at eight months because she just couldn't stand the nickname people kept using. If you hate it, fix it before she learns how to spell it!