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  • AutorenbildThe Mutti

What's in a name...



If you thought that making a baby could be difficult, let me tell you that you’re wrong! The real big deal is actually agreeing on a name for a baby, especially for a boy and if you are one of the two parties of a binational couple!


Right after the gender reveal episode we started looking for a name. Hubs and I agreed that the name should be in Spanish since his family name would be in German (later, we also found out that he could have both dad’s and mom’s family names, which I loved because I always found it horrible that in Germany and most European countries families only carry the name of the father, as if the mother didn’t matter at all although she does most of the birthing and childcare job!).


Traditions...


In Latin America, there is (or was) the tradition of naming the new family member after the father, the mother or the grandparents (in some cases some important family members would even have a say on it and I always have to think and laugh on that Modern Family episode when Gloria has to name her baby Fulgencio). Therefore, the most common names among relatives in my mother’s family are Esteban and Rafael, both referring to both names of my grandpa, who is the most adorable, almost perfect guy I know! Esteban appears three times, including the middle name of my little brother and Rafael also three times. And there is only one female relative named after my grandma, Eucaris. Nevertheless, my parents opted for not naming their children after themselves, mostly because my father has a rather unspeakable name and my mother’s is also very unusual. Instead and funny enough, my father decided that the combination of his children’s names would honor the holy family, Jesus, María and José.


In Germany naming children after their relatives sounds rather like a nightmare. And it’s only a big deal for the parents-to-be. Some of them even keep the name secret until the baby is born, I guess in order to avoid external criticism or bullying at an early stage, as could have happened to a very close family member. We didn’t want too much external input on this but since we did that sort of gender reveal gathering with my family, we asked them to give us some name ideas. However, none of them had a great resonance.


Anyway, before even thinking of getting pregnant, and because I always wanted a daughter, I only seriously thought of girl names. I wanted to call my daughter Sofia. I’ve always loved the name. But then, most of my (school) friends started having children and, guess, there were already three Sofias, written in different ways, among them. So that name was a no go (I later decided to myself that my daughter will be called Lucia or Elena. Period.)!


Binational conflict


I didn’t think too much on boy names. I just wanted a nice, elegant sounding name which at the same time could be easily pronounced in German (I already have had to deal with enough people who just can’t pronounce my name properly to the point that I introduce myself with the German version of it).


But I could not imagine that it would be so difficult to agree on with my German husband who always had a “yeah but” or just a simple “no way because” for my name preferences. Not on purpose, my very firsts thoughts related actually to the existing names in my family. My two big favorites were Antonio and Emilio (after some point also Esteban but I knew it would be difficult to pronounce for Germans). My father’s middle name is Antonio and I wanted Emilio as an homage to my dead grandma, Eucaris Emilia. I love both of them and I wanted to stick to them.


BUT we could not name our son Antonio BECAUSE that reminded my husband of every pizza baker in Germany. Besides, he would NEVER EVER be called Antonio, but Anton or Tony, so NO WAY! And I thought to myself, what’s wrong with Tony? I like it! It’s much better than Toño! And in the case of Emilio, there was NO WAY BECAUSE he wouldn’t be called like that, but EMIL, the German way. And I seriously hate the German version! So, he practically invented a bad memory story for every name idea I brought up. That was so frustrating!


And the winner is...


We went through several name lists. We looked at those with the most popular baby names in Germany of the last three years or so, mostly in order to avoid any of them because they were so awful or cheesy or just too common. At the end, we agreed that each of us would make a list with 10 favorite names and then we would compare them and finally decide on one.


We took that task very seriously. When comparing the lists, we had agreed on three names! There was hope! They were Thiago, Rafael, and Nicolás! We made some research about their meanings, which we liked a lot, and shared the runner ups with the family and they helped us decide a bit. For many of them Thiago was great. But then we thought, what if it became more like a trend name (remember, Leonel Messi’s son’s name is Thiago) and we were afraid that it would became the next Justin or Kevin, which are very popular names among the German lower class and RTL II audience.


There were only Rafael and Nicolas left. Out of nothing we started googling names to see which celebrities were named after them. Rafa Nadal, why not?! And Nicolas Sarkozy and Nicolas Maduro, SERIOUSLY? A few days later, a family member meant that there were already too many Rafaels in the family. And my father reminded us that if named Nicolas, he would be always be teased with the funny saying “Nicolas ya comiste ya te vas!” (a rhyme for “you ate, so you go”). But we hadn’t still made up our minds. Both had too cool nicknames: Rafa and Nico (that you also have to think about!).


After two months of name searching, we wanted to end this quest as soon as possible! On Valentine’s day my husband invited me to spend the weekend at a nice hotel. During dinner, we brought up the topic once again. Rafael or Nicolás? It was just the two of us, finally dealing seriously with that major concern. At the end, Nicolás won, because “he brings the victory to its people” and it’s not very common anymore and because we just loved its sound! We shook hands. It was a sealed deal!


For those of you who wonder if our kid would have a second name: Well in both countries it is very common, especially in Latin America. But! After such a long searching process and since we knew already that we wanted our kids to have both our surnames, we did not want to spend more energy in finding a second name. So we quickly dismissed the idea. And we are still really cool with that!


How was your name searching experience? Are there any name traditions? Was it difficult for you and your partner or did you always have a sure winner?

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