If only names

Princess Nebraska wrote last week about her kids “if only” names. Both Thomas and I have one for Paul. I wanted to name him Luke. Thomas wouldn’t agree, because he has a cousin named Luke. He lived with his aunt and uncle the summer after Luke was born and felt like he was too close to that part of his family to use the same name. Plus, even though Luke is my husband’s cousin, he’s closer to Paul’s age (he’s five). My argument was that it’s not going to be a big deal to have the same name as your second cousin. How often do you see your second cousin?? But, regardless, the name was off the table. I don’t regret it – Paul’s name fits him perfectly – but I’m still kind of bummed I’ll never have a baby Luke.

I think our second girl name might end up being an “if only” name, too. When I was pregnant with Meg, we had two names we loved. We decided she was a Meg, but that if we had a second girl she’d definitely get the other name. I still love that name, but I’m not sure I’d use it anymore. It’s been rising in popularity a lot and I’d like to use a name somewhere around the same popularity as the other two kids’ names. It’s not that I’m against super-popular names, I just think that since we’ve used two names around #200 on the Social Security list we should try and match that level of popularity with the third.