Waiting until the baby is born before deciding on the name?

[Clevs]

Just wondering how common this is? I want to choose a name before the baby arrives but husband wants to wait until after the birth to "see what it looks like". I'm struggling to get my head round this as babies don't 'look' like anything do they? Unless you look at the genitals I think it's difficult to even tell if it's a boy or girl a lot of the time.

How many of you waited until after the birth before deciding on a name? And why?

We won't have many names to decide on as we've narrowed it down to about two or three for each gender.

I had a name choses for my eldest but when he was born I didn't think he looked like it so I changed it

We chose a name for both before they were born. I don't think they look like names when they're born tbh! They grow into them.

We're down to two or three but keep changing our minds. I think the reality of the baby being here will focus our minds and help us make the final decision (also means that as the Mum who just went through labour you're bound to get the casting vote)

I chose all of mine after birth, with the exception of my first, as he was named after my father.

I definitely think they do immediately look (but more often don't look) like particular names when they're born. I had several, "No, you really don't look like an X" moments after mine were born.

I waited. DD was actually 10 weeks old before she got a name! (8 week limit so I had to call up and request more time). Little brother is nearly 3 weeks old and doesn't have a name yet but we've narrowed it down to two options so close to deciding. It's pretty normal where I live though, people don't name the baby until the christening so call them by a nickname until then - baby's nickname is Mr. Justice.

We picked beforehand. I do see why people want to wait (although maybe not 6 weeks!) but I think babies just look like babies rather than their name and then they become their name iyswim

I really don't understand the whole "but what if they don't look like xyz", I don't understand how they couldn't unless you just weren't 100% on the name in the first place. I like to pick a boy/girl name and then once you know gender refer to them as that name, for me it really helped me bond with baby. We only kept the name and gender to ourselves though as we liked the idea of waiting until little one arrived before announcing.

We did this. Yellow bump but even then we had a shortlist of 2/3 names. Didn't settle on one until DD was 12 hours old.

2/3 names for each sex

We had a shortlist but then when DD was born, I vetoed several as they suddenly seemed too harsh when attached to an actual mini human. It took us 2 weeks to decide and we flipped a coin between 2 names and I dictated the middle name!

Of course a baby can look like their name! Or more, not look like another name. We had a list of 4-5 for each sex. After DS was born we went through each and tried calling him each one. It was really clear which ones just didn't suit him and felt a bit strange to say aloud to an actual person. One just suited perfectly and that was that.

Thanks for all of the replies, seems to be a good mix of opinion!

I just like being really organised and feel like it should be in place beforehand. Not naming till after the birth seems to be more common than I thought though!

We waited until both were born to find out sex and to choose name.