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Jan 1, 2009 
Everyone has opinions about what names they like and what names they dislike. Please do not be offended if I list your name on the dislike list. In the past few years, the wife and I have had a couple of kids. During this joyous time, I’ve found some negotiating happening. I’m pretty sure that the wife hadn’t taken a Karrass Negotiating class, but I find myself in negotiations regarding the baby’s name.
As much as I’d like to say we both just came to an agreement on a name that we love, that didn’t seem to occur. My requirements for a name seem simple. I’d like the name to be easy to spell, yet not super common like mine (Michael). Being the list-maker type, I thought I found the perfect solution with the Social Security website. Utilizing our taxpayer dollars, there is a wonderful site that lists the top 1000 baby names of past years and even shows you a 15 year trend. For all naming nerds, how cool is that? My solution was to have the wife chug through all 1000 and pick out her favorite 50 or 60, of which I’m sure I’d find some names that I’d like as well. When I tried this exercise, I found plenty of “cool” names and I was sure that she would as well.
Her technique was to only find about 10 names (out of a 1000) that she liked and I theorize (though she denies it) she made sure I wouldn’t pick those names. These would be crazy off-shoot names that nobody would spell correctly at first try like Kadin, Layne, Aydin, or Jordyn (these weren’t exactly the ones she picked but you get the idea). Of course, she strongly insisted that she loved these names……increasing the negotiating leverage on me. As the due date approached, she of course mentioned that she’d ultimately get to make the choice in the hospital. For any of you that have taking a negotiating class, this is exactly the place you don’t want to be.
Feeling the pressure, I started to offer a “deal”. Could we possibly deal $$$ for letters? Maybe we could reduce our emergency fund by a $100 and increase her “cash spend” by $100 (the actual amounts were higher)??? Of course, this only meant that she’d negotiate away from Christofer or Meagan towards Christopher or Megan……not that I got to choose. Eventually, we found a name that we agreed on…..and the $$$ changed accounts. Probably our best match was the name Braxton.
Check out the Social Security Site. It’s interesting to see some of the name trends. You can definitely see the impact of the movies and celebrity baby names.
Getting more popular (rank from year to year)
Ella – 374..265..192..89..44..29..23..21..21
Ava – 259..180..133..82..39..25..9..5..4
Mia – 120..94..76..43..36..30..17..13..15
How about a movie impact name?
Trinity (before The Matrix) – 900..789..663..672..544..527
Trinity (after The Matrix) – 209..74..67..70..56..48..64..72
Any other interesting trends that somebody sees? Any better negotiating techniques I could try?
Happy New Year’s!!! I wonder what the New Year’s baby will be named.
Cheers! Sandra. R.
