Dennis is not a family name, nor is it the surname of my favorite actor. Dennis is not a character from a great work of literary fiction. In fact, Dennis is not even the name of my son. His name is Julian, and now that he’s seven years old, I rarely forget it.
But in those early days in the hospital, when we first met our newborn son, “Dennis” was the first name that sprang to my lips when I referred to him.
Why?
Because Dennis was the name of our cat.
Our feline roommate, who for the past year had dominated our attention, captured our pre-parental hearts with his cuteness, entertained us with his rascally manners, and distracted us as we slogged through month after month of not conceiving, had somehow worked his way into our brains so deeply that Dennis became synonymous with “that creature that we are consumed with caring for.”
And when Julian cried out in his hospital-issued bassinet, my husband and I both confessed, “I almost called him Dennis!” We continued to slip up and call him Dennis either in our minds or out loud for the first few weeks.
I have heard from other moms that they had a hard time attaching their new child’s name to the baby once he or she arrived. In some cases, a pet’s name is the competing name, and in some, another recently born baby in their social circle.
When I first spoke to my friend Rachael following the birth of her second daughter, I said, “Remind me, did you go with Leah or Maya?” and she confessed, “It’s Maya, but I’m not sure it was the right choice; I keep forgetting!”
Did you find it difficult to remember your baby’s name at first?
*haha* When I was pregnant with my son erik we had some fun calling my belly ”elvis”. I can’t even remember the reason,but friends and family did the same. So even now 2 1/2 years later I meet people asking me : How’s elvis?
greetings from germany
Kati
When my children were born, we, being their father and I, named them right there in the OR (I had C’s). When I was snug in our hospital room, and a moment alone with my new baby, I whispered their real name to them, a name that had popped into my head when I held them for the first time, unbidden. It happened both times, so I went with the flow.
Both my boy and my girl have names only I know, and are not on their birth certificate. Believe it or not, this made it so much easier to remember their given names, because I had given them secret, special names for just me (and eventually them, when they are adults, I will tell them). If I forgot their name early on, I would think their “secret” name, and then their name would come to me. Its association at its best!
My LO is named Isabella and we mostly call her Bella but never Izzy. We have 2 dogs, one we’ve had since she was a puppy, mainly all her life, who is named Coco. I find myself calling the dog Bella alot….she comes anyway!
It took me a while to warm up to our new baby’s name (the only name we could agree on at all, but nowhere near the top of either of our lists) and for the first month or so I kept dreaming that we had given him a different name. Now we’re used to it, but I still sort of wish we had decided on something else.
I call my six-month-old son by the dog’s name or simply ‘Puppy’ all the time. I also will call the dog by the baby’s name on occasion, so it evens out I suppose.
I’m so grateful to know this isn’t just me! My daughter Claire is 4 months old and my husband and I both still call her anything BUT. Peanut, pretty girl, baby, monster, minion, etc etc. I’m afraid she’ll never know her name.
Claire was the only one we agreed on, and I thought it was perfect. We agreed not to say one way or another until she was born. My husband blurted it out before we’d even talked about it so I went with him. I have regrets but I also don’t have any other suggestions, so Claire she is!
I do not excel at naming children. Mind you it wasn’t super hard picking a name. We chose our first borns name before she arrived with plenty of time. Trouble was once we named her at her birth, I wasn’t sure it was *her* name. When I mentioned this to my husband he asked what else I thought we should name her. Except, I didn’t have any other names. I just wasn’t sure *that* name was *hers*. So I just kept calling her that name and feeling like it might not be the right one! Turns out I didn’t feel it was until well after a year old! Luckily, it took less time with my second, who’s name was also chosen prior to birth. With her, it only took 7 months!!
My big problem is that I have 2 girls, so the second girl gets called #1′s name all the time. Now that she’s 8 months old, not as much, maybe 10% of the time. But for the first few month? Closer to 80%
P.S. Just checked out your book on Amazon! I need someone I know to have their first baby so I can give it to them! I totally obsessively used a spreadsheet with my first baby — absolutely sure I could discover the key to him sleeping better. Never bothered (even with the one the hospital practically begged me to do) with tracking a darn thing for the other 2. I didn’t enjoy it and I knew it would make NO DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER.
My name is Kimberly, my younger sister is Kylie, and our family dog growing up was named Kirby. Of the three of us, my mom only picked my name. My sister and I were adopted and she was named by her birthparents, and our dog was an adult from a shelter who was already accustomed to his name by the time we took him in. My mom called the three of us by each other’s names constantly. Her “defense” was that both Kylie and Kirby’s names were comprised entirely of letters that were in my name. Ha.
My oldest was easy…it just was her name. My youngest, I so wanted the nickname Izzie…but not Isabella. So on searching I found Eliza…loved the name and Izzie could easily be what we called her, but we call her Ellie. Not sure how that happened, but it fits her so much better than Izzie.
I didn’t have a name problem, but what I do have, even almost 4 years later, is a problem remembering his date of birth. It’s like it’s a trick question when we’re at the doctor’s office!
throughout gestation our first (and thus far only) child was lovingly referred to as, “splotch,” because i remarked upon first sight of this bitty white blob, “it looks like a little splotch!” surely not a terribly uncommon observation of early ultrasound images, heh. thankfully the nickname quickly left with the arrival of our daughter, never referred to as such since.
I rarely used the wrong name for them, but I called both of my boys “the baby” the first few months of their lives because I could never remember their names. I remember forcing myself to call them by the names they had chosen even though it felt awkward because I was so afraid they would end up as grown men who were nicknamed “Baby”.
Wendy, I just LOL’d thinking about grown men who go by “Baby”.
With four boys in a row, I keep mixing them all up! But most notably, with a newborn, my husband and I do keep using our next youngest’s name — though, being a three year-old he is quick to remind us he is NOT the baby!
{Kathy} Our first son’s name is Max. He is named after his grandmother and great grandfather. However, calling a little tiny newborn baby Max was difficult at first. It sounded more like a dog’s name than a person’s name. I can’t tell you how many times someone has asked me when I’ve been talking about him, “Are you talking about your dog?”
I have two sons & two brothers and I often call my sons my brothers’ names. I call the younger one my youngest brother’s name & the older one my 2nd younger brother’s name. I’m not sure why but I’ve done it on & off since they were born, often in front of family (who just look at me like I’m crazy).
We still call our 7 month old daughter “baby girl”. We couldn’t decide on a name before we left the hospital, so we just called her Baby Girl and that was what was on all her paperwork. We did eventually pick a name, but to us she is still “baby girl”. Naming is hard!
In utero our son was Zyggy (short for Zygote). We thought we wouldn’t be able to switch from that to his real name, but when he came out, he was so much bigger than a Zygote that it wasn’t too hard to make the switch. But we switched to another nickname and only use his real name about a third of the time.