Did you tell anyone your baby name before the arrival?

[birdofthenorth]

I'm 38.5 weeks along and DH and I decided on Bess short for Elizabeth as our DD-to-be's name months ago, and have been referring to her as Bess since. My austitic DSS (7) also calls her Bess all the time rather than 'the baby', which we think has been helpful in preparing him.

We haven't told anyone else in the real world her name as (a) I don't want to tempt fate and (b)I'd rather leave it until the big announcement when she's a real huggable bairn.

However, yesterday we fitted 'Bess' lettering to her nursery in excitment -looks lovely! My in laws are coming for a week next week and I'm torn whether to take it down and try to keep the name as a surpise, or let them in on the secret. I'm worried they might not like it -but then given we've gone as far as to buy lettering, I hope they'd bite their tongues if that were the case! I'm also worried they'll tell all their side of the family as MIL is lovely but not good at keeping secrets (their entire extended family knew about the pregnancy long before 12 weeks she was so excited!).

But then, my DSS will doubtless call the baby by name when they are here, so it may be futile to keep up the surprise.

Did you all tell people your names pre-birth? Any annoying reactions?

I told my mum that we we're probably going to go with Isabel when I was pg with DD. She would say "Isabel? What about Lucy or Amy?" her polite way of saying that she didn't like it!

We called her Isabel anyway as we loved it despite what anyone else said. My mum says that she loves the name now, although she still teases DD with Isabel necessary on a bicycle! Grr!

No. However lovely the name, someone will always hate it, and will have no qualms about telling you. But people generally have the good manners to smile politely and say "how unusual!" after the event.

I'd agree - don't. hide the lettering and maybe say a friend of DSS has a new sister called bess or something - or maybe just ignore completely - and PIL might not even mention it?

A friend was pg and told a group of friends their "boys name" and the girls name and everyone thought they were winding up with boys name and said it was dog's name and were really horrid. She was v. upset and still hasn't told me the name - even though her DD (Beatrice) is almost a year!

Where did you get lettering by the way?

Thanks all! Some great advice and some nice names cropiing up to -loving Oakley for a boy!

The lettering we've got is from thewoodenletterscompany.com which I would really recommend, you get to design it yourself picking the colour, font and pattern for each letter, it's lovely! We have it for DSS too and he loves his.

All I'd say is some come with hooks and some with adhesive tape and the adhesive tape is REALLY strong so make sure you've got each letter in the right place before you make contact with the wall else you'll have a battle to wrench it off neatly!!

You can't please all of the people all of the time, but of course with DC names it is a more sensitive subject. I have told close friends, parents and PIL of the name we've chosen for our DD1 (due November) but wouldn't tell my sister, for example, as I'd be worried she'd be negative. However, it's the only name DH and I can agree on - so she'd better look like her name!