It’s Just About Baby Time

I am having a c-section this Friday, the 6th, at 7:30 MDT. Watch the blog that morning for updates. I’ve been doing a lot of cleaning and organizing for the past several days, and I think we’re just about ready. All I have to do is vacuum and mop, not because the baby cares, but because a thorough floor cleaning is long overdue and I don’t want to come home to a dirty house/floor next Monday.

Marcus’ mom (and nephew) is coming into town tomorrow evening. She will watch Emrick while Marcus and I are in the hospital with the baby. Marcus will spend some time at home every day, of course, but he will also be at the hospital a lot, so we need the extra adult around. I am sad that my mom can’t be here this time, but she knows what’s going on, and I told her a few weeks ago that she would be the first person to hear the baby’s name. So… until I get the chance to call my parents that day, don’t expect to see any name announcements here, even if you DO see some pictures go up.

And speaking of the baby’s name, NOPE, we don’t have one yet. But I think we’re making some progress. After months of throwing out names that I like and having Marcus grimace or shake his head, I finally got him to come up with some suggestions of his own! Last night we swapped lists of almost 30 names each. We found that our lists had a few names in common; some of those names are ones I had brought up before and which Marcus at least found acceptable, but a couple of them were ones we never talked about, so it was interesting to see them on both of our lists.

I don’t know why I thought naming a girl would be so easy. I guess it’s because for years I had names in my head that I always thought I’d some day use to name a baby girl. So what happened to those names? Well a few of them are now in the top 10 or top 20 of given baby names in the U.S., as published yearly by the Social Security Administration. The idea of an insanely popular name turns me off, I have to admit. And then another name I like was used by a friend of mine a few years ago, and even though she lives far away, I would still feel weird about it, even though I don’t think she’d care. You know, I knew another girl in college who actually had a falling out with her best friend because they both wanted to name their hypothetical future daughters the same thing. Yeah.

Then there are the names I like that just don’t sound right with Sorensen, for whatever reason.

But back to those insanely popular names I mentioned… A couple of the names on Marcus’ list are on the SSA’s Top-10 and Top-20 lists. I said to Marcus, “Such and such is a beautiful name but it’s too popular. It’s a top 10 name.” I had visions of our daughter being one of three or four girls in the same Kindergarten class with the same name. But Marcus brought up a good question: Just what percentage of babies born every year actually have that name? So for example, if the most popular baby girl name is Sophia (which for 2013 it currently is, so far), what does that mean in terms of percentage? What percentage of baby girls are actually being named Sophia this year? So we went online to access more SSA data and Marcus entered it into a spread sheet on his laptop, and we determined that the answer is about .8%. That’s right. The most popular baby name in the U.S. is bestowed on less than one percent of baby girls born in the U.S. in a given year! So that kind of put things into perspective for us, which means that some of those top names are actually contenders now. Still, I can’t shake the memory that when I was teaching here in Utah, I had three Nathans in one class; I had six Austins spread across three classes, and about the same number of Bradens (including Braydens, Braydons, and Braedens) spread across a few classes as well. Of course, we did use Braden as Emrick’s middle name, but I was willing to overlook its ubiquity because it’s a family name. Anyway, those names are probably also used less than one percent of the time, and yet that’s still enough to saturate a class roster with multiples of the same name. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to name the baby Stargazer or anything, but I’d like to avoid her being one of three  — Sophias, for instance — in her sophomore English class.

I have a feeling that we will narrow it down to about three, and then go with the name that seems to suit her best after she’s born. That’s fine with me, as long as we decide by Friday afternoon.