Magazine

Exhausted mom in a messy living room looking at baby name lists on her phone.

The Real Reason I Cried About My Baby's Name at the Hospital

I was sitting in exactly the wrong position on that terrible plastic-covered hospital mattress, wearing mesh underwear that I swear was designed as a medieval torture device, nursing a lukewarm cup of what the cafeteria boldly claimed was coffee, when...

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A stressed father looking at a baby name spreadsheet

The spreadsheet reality of picking baby boy names with J

I'm sitting at the kitchen island at 2am, staring at a deeply neurotic Excel spreadsheet colour-coded by syllable count. This was three years ago, roughly halfway through my wife’s pregnancy, before the NHS ultrasound technician cheerfully announced "it’s two girls,...

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A tired mother sitting on a porch looking at a baby name book

Dear Past Me: What I Wish I Knew Before Naming Our Baby Akira

Dear Jess from six months agoβ€”put down your sweet tea, close the Pinterest tab where you're looking at custom nursery signs, and for the love of everything holy, delete that hashtag draft from your Instagram. You're sitting there on the...

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Exhausted mom looking at baby clothes trying to understand infant sizing

Finding the Right Medical Baby Synonym: A Parent's Guide to Stages

It was a Tuesday at 8 PM, which is basically the witching hour in the fluorescent-lit aisles of Target, and I was holding a fleece sleep sack with little grey clouds on it while silently crying into my half-empty iced...

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Exhausted dad staring at a spreadsheet of rare names while holding a teething twin

A letter to myself about the absolute farce of finding rare baby gi...

Dear Tom of exactly six months ago, You're currently sitting on the floor of the hallway, a chewed-up blue biro in your mouth, staring at a stack of nursery registration forms while Twin B attempts to post half a soggy...

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Stressed dad in a hospital room holding an 11-month-old baby while researching whimsical naming ideas on a smartphone.

The Hospital Wi-Fi Stalled Our Magic Baby Names

The fluorescent light in room 412 of Providence Hospital had this specific 60-hertz hum that was drilling directly into my sleep-deprived prefrontal cortex. I had a lukewarm, terrible cafeteria coffee in one hand and a state-mandated birth certificate form in...

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Tired dad holding a teething baby while staring blankly at a list of names

Surviving the Minefield of Hispanic Baby Girl Names

The greatest lie they peddle in those glossy parenting magazinesβ€”usually the ones featuring a serene mother in white linen looking lovingly at a perfectly clean infantβ€”is that picking a name for your child is a beautiful, intuitive process. They suggest...

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Pregnant woman sitting in the dark looking at her phone screen.

My 3 AM breakdown over a 700-year-old pregnancy prediction chart

Listen, the bathroom tiles were freezing against my bare legs, and my phone screen was turned down to that barely-visible dim setting so I wouldn't wake my husband. I was exactly seven weeks pregnant. I felt like I had swallowed...

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A heavily pregnant woman staring at a messy notebook of scratched out names.

The Unfiltered Guide To Baby Names 2025 And Avoiding Regret

I was standing in the middle of a Target aisle at 8:42 PM on a Tuesday, wearing maternity sweatpants with a questionable, crusty yogurt stain on the left thigh, when my husband confidently suggested the name "Garth" for our unborn...

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