Why Your Husband Shouldn't Pick Baby Names

Naming your baby is a huge responsibility. Some parents are content to play it safe and throw a common name on the birth certificate, while others feel it their duty to combine as many letters of the alphabet as possible and invent a baby name that nobody else on earth will have (or be able to pronounce).

As for me, I wanted something in the middle. Nothing overly common, but nothing that my child would be a freshman in high school before he could spell. Like many parents, I turned to baby name books and websites. Searching for baby names can become a kind of addiction. Sure, there may be 10,000 pages of baby names on a website, but what if YOUR child's perfect name is on page 9,999 and you didn't even make it that far?

Luckily, parents have close to nine months to choose their baby's name, and I did succeed in making a list of my favorite names. Of course I wanted my husband to have his say in the baby naming process, so I asked him to look through the books and decide on his favorites.

Bad idea.

My concern was that my husband would choose overly common baby names, and when I saw his face light up as he flipped through the baby naming book I was expecting him to proudly announce that he had selected "Joe". Instead, he said, "This is it - MAGNUS!"

If your family has a proud history of naming children Magnus, I apologize for making fun of the name. However, I obviously would not allow my child to be named Magnus, despite my husband's argument that it is a strong name. "People know you mean business with a name like that!", he said.

If I thought Magnus was the worst of it, I was wrong. For some reason that I can't quite understand, the name "Hardtimes" appeared in this baby name book. My husband, of course, instantly fell in love with the name. When I told him that wasn't happening, he accepted defeat and said we could just use it for a middle name. After all, we already had the first name - Magnus.

We did not name our son Magnus Hardtimes, although if I had let my husband make the decision I'm not entirely convinced that he wouldn't have. A similar scenario played out when we named our second son, but he also avoided the name Magnus Hardtimes.

Deciding on your baby's name is important, which is why I recommend that both parents have their say, but the mother fill out the birth certificate.