Tips on Choosing Baby Names

The most difficult thing during the end of pregnancy is to decide your baby's name if you have not already done so. You are running out of time and the clock is ticking. Some people name after their favorite aunt or uncle or some movie star or super star or a specific name which they had thought of long back or some have no idea what to name their child. They want to start from scratch.

That's what happened to us. During the fag end of 8^th month suddenly it occurred to us that what if our baby is born before the due date, what if next week or a week after.

We have prepared everything except the baby's name.

More so ever we did not know if we are going to have a baby boy or a baby girl?

One fine day on the Saturday morning when we got worried after false contractions, both me and my husband decided today is the D day, we will finalize our baby's name. We started discussing what should we name our baby, how we should decide, are we looking for a specific meaning, has any one of us thought of any names earlier and so on. With no clear cut answer for any of these we ended up Goggling for Indian baby name websites. Being in US we did not have the liberty to go to a local book store and pick out some good books on Indian baby names. Our work was doubled as we had to think of two names - one for a girl and another for a boy.

So the work began , both me and my husband started doing search together, after about an hour or so when we were not reaching to agreement we decided to do independent search. We started looking for various websites, blogs and tips for looking for a baby name and so on.

From the whole list of the numerous websites we clicked below are some of the websites we bookmarked. These websites not only have just Indian Hindu baby names but they have international baby names as well.

http://www.whattoexpect.com/pregnancy/baby-name-finder/landing-page.aspx

http://parenting.ivillage.com/pregnancy/babynames/finder

http://hinduism.about.com/library/babynames/bl-babynames-index.htm

http://hinduism.about.com/od/girlnames/a/a.htm

http://www.yourbabysname.com/new.htm

http://www.iloveindia.com/babynames/

http://www.indianchild.com/indian_baby_names.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_given_names#Asia_.26_Pacific

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_given_names#Female_names_2

Believe me, it takes a while before you finally land up to less than 10 websites which you will refer to decide your baby's name. You will get hundreds of tips from new parents, old parents, your friends on how and what you should keep in mind while naming your child. For example if you are and Indian living in US you should go through the top 100 list of Indian baby names in last couple of years . The names should not be difficult to pronounce, the nick name should be cute too and so on.

We also got to know culturally how Indian parents name their children first names.

Refer the below link for this.

http://www.thetop100babynames.com/Nationality/IndianBabyNames.htm

Its true that these days most of us do not follow these and just name our child after whatever feels good to us, its good to know how it is done in our culture. There are certain families who still follow all these rules and name their child based on their zodiac sign or based on the alphabet their priest suggests and on a particular auspicious day.

All of this change when your baby is born in US and it is expected that the child's name is given at the very moment or maximum by the very next day in order to process the formalities for a birth certificate.

Some parents then give two names to their babies. One which is used for all official purpose and the other one as the name to be used at home which can be given later after considering every factor like which alphabet and on what day the namkaran (naming ceremony) should happen.

In our case, based on our research, suggestion from family and friends and inspirations at various times in about 3 weeks we made list of baby girl and baby boy. After combining these we rated them separately. No bias you see. We selected top 10 of both our lists. Then combined them again. More filtering and brought them down to top 5.

We kept revisiting these names and tried to figure out how each of these will sound when we hear it 100 times a day. Some of these got rejected right away.

Meanwhile, it was time to deliver. We were yet not decided on the names. We discussed it again one more time in the labor room before I was in active labor.

We came down to two names for baby girl and one name for baby boy. My hubby said, now that we are down to these numbers, you name the baby. I remember saying to my husband; if it's a girl then I will decide after looking at her. Don't know what I was thinking. May be that, will name her based on what suits her or to what name she responds once I call out to her.

I called out the first name and she smiled. I named her Anoushka. I never called out the second name. It seemed perfect. It was the name my Hubby suggested in the music room of our library when we were looking for some music that is good for the baby and the mother to listen when pregnant.

Anoushka is a girl's name. The origin of the baby name Anoushka is Hebrew, Russian, Sanskrit and means Gracious and well mannered, A term of endearment, She who has friends and no enemies, A form of Anne, lightning, little Anna. It has various spellings Anushka, Annushka apart from Anoushka.

We kept the Russian spelling Anoushka with the meaning Gracious, Well mannered, one who has friends and no enemies.

In short , Start early, note down all the names that you like, take ideas from friends and family, search internet, keep your religious faith into consideration, make it a combined effort of father and mother, discuss, revisit the selections , take your time but set a timeline, filter the selection and then finally decide based on what your heart feels is right.

This was our journey of how we figured out what to name our first child. Have a great time finding yours.