What She Said: The closely kept secret of a new baby name

What’s in a name? A lot, apparently. Nothing seems more closely guarded than the possible names of future babies. In fact, in many circles, it’s now considered rude to ask what an expectant parent is going to name their baby. Is it the fear that they’ll take that name for themselves? That’s a huge part of it, yes. Watch out for the silent stand-off when one mother says to another, upon hearing their chosen name, ‘OMG that’s also one of my top names!’ Don’t you f*cking dare. I decided to gauge the temperature on this over on Instagram where women in their droves told me they’d be ‘absolutely fuming’ if someone took their baby name, knowing it had been their top choice. ‘It happened to me, and it was my best friend. She used my girl name but then I had a boy.’ I’m not sure she’s over it yet. Another woman said, emphatically, ‘YES. If they copied me, fury. If coincidence, devastation.’ This might have been the sister of the other woman who replied, ‘my sister didn’t speak to me for months as I called my child the name she wanted for hers but I didn’t know.’ A small minority said they wouldn’t care at all, while one said ‘I’d see it as a compliment.’ The sense of ownership over unborn baby names is, I suspect, something new. Back in the day, when we didn’t have lists upon lists of options to consult, and we could only really choose between John, Mary, Ann and Barry, such grudges would not have been held.

For some, the privacy around names is out of fear. They might share their name, a name they’ve poured over for nine months, only for the person they’re telling to respond with a throwaway ‘oh I knew a ‘Karen’ once, she was a real pain in the hole, though.’ Well thanks, now you’ve ruined it. Sadly (for all the sound Karens out there), she was probably never going to use this name because, for some reason, the entire world has decided all Karens are problematic. For the record, I know lots of lovely Karens.

We decided on our son’s name quite late in the game. I didn’t keep it a secret because I’m rubbish at that. I told everyone who asked me. For a long time he was going to be ‘Josh’, a name I still like but can’t see working for him. He’s Caelan. Not Keelin, as a lot of people assume it’s pronounced. And not Kway-lawn either, as Irish name enthusiasts prefer. Perhaps unpatriotically, we Anglicised his name in the hopes it would make it easier for people to both pronounce and spell as he got older. So far, we’ve had to pronounce and spell it at every turn, so that didn’t go as planned. A life of correcting people awaits him. I let my husband make the final call on the name; so much else felt up to me – it was my birth, my body, my vagina, my hemorrhoids to tend to in the aftermath, and he didn’t even get to be there in person and feed me ice cubes. I figured this would be one thing he could take ownership of, feel emotionally connected to, and get excited about. I trusted he wasn’t going to name him after his favourite rugby player. I later learned Caelan Dorris is definitely up there among his favourite Irish rugby players.

I also had a friend called Caolan, spelled differently but pronounced the same, and thought I’d forever associate it with him (I used to also quite fancy this person so that made it weird), but once your child comes into being, it doesn’t matter if you name them after Saddam Hussein himself, the association breaks and becomes the reserve of your child and your child alone, at least in your eyes. So whether or not someone else takes your precious name, when push comes to shove (pun intended), it won’t matter to you. This hasn’t stopped 88% of my followers steering clear of names they associate with someone they dislike, however.

Choosing your kid’s names is such an enormous decision; our identity is wrapped up in our name. And as adults, we can have quite complex relationships with our own names; it’s something we had no involvement in deciding on and for many Irish-named folk in particular, they’ve had a lifetime of grappling with the likes of Saoirse or Neasa or Domhnall, especially when abroad. I asked Instagram how they feel about their own name: 20% of my followers are dissatisfied with their name. Though 80% are fine about their name in adulthood, 45% grew up wishing they had been named differently (I longed to be an Erica or a Kerry, because they were the cool older girls I knew of, with highlights and cool English accents). As a Caroline, I’ve now become indifferent to the name. Someone with the same name told me they hated it because it sounded like a middle-aged mom from the 80s. I don’t disagree. It’s not a name that anyone is calling their babies these days, and when something falls out of favour with the masses, it’s only a matter of time before it comes back around. My husband’s name is Barry. A very mid-80s boy name and not one to feature on any baby lists in the last twenty years. But when Meghan Trainor named her most recent baby Barry, it was described as a ‘golden vintage’ name by several baby name websites. By this time next year, you’ll no doubt see lots of Barrys rising to the fore, meaning my husband will be as cool as we consider the likes of Phoenix to be right now. And if his name will soon start arguments between pregnant sisters, that can only mean Caroline will become covetable again too.

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