I'm really struggling with names at the moment, I'm impressed some of you have already decided! We'll (as last time) come up with a preference, and a couple of backups and not tell anyone till we've met little one and decided what fits.
Our son has 4 names
- a British first name,
- a Sri Lankan middle name (which is neither Tamil, nor Sinhalese, nor girly sounding {a lot of boys names in Tamil end in -a} nor tied to a specific religion),
- the first half of my UK double barrelled surname which is also used as a first name in some areas in order to avoid the other three initials spelling out something bullyable,
- then his very long* and hard to spell and pronounce father's Sri Lankan origin surname.
* actually mine's just as long but because it's British, doesn't cause half so many problems with people.
So, erm, where do we go from there with the girl? We want the same pattern;
- British for ease of use over here,
- Sri Lankan to connect with their father's heritage,
- something (part of my mother in law's maiden name would make a lovely girl's name {Silva} and carry on a tradition from my family {using maiden names from mother, father's mother, mother's mother etc for middle names for successive male children and I'm just ignoring the sexist bit of leaving it just for the boys}, except that my husband has vetoed using her name as he doesn't like it, we could use the same boyish name as my son has there or a girly version e.g. change 1 letter and add an -a on the end makes a standard UK girl's name)
- then the same surname.
It's a lot harder to find a decent number of girls Sri Lankan names online (my mother in law is on the case as she's over there at the moment visiting family**). And we don't seem to agree on any British girls names so far.
** which of course means she'll return with oodles of clothes for my son and probably for the girl too, given her relatives' and her own propensity for giving clothing presents. And due to my son's diminutive size, the season of the clothes and what he fits at the time just don't match. He's 17 months and still in 9-12 months clothes! (I won't mention them not being to my taste, as I think she now knows my taste and the stuff I like less is what gets sent to nursery to have messy fun in.) I probably oughtn't to mention that sometimes I feel totally ungrateful as I would like to pick him some clothes myself and by the time she's brought that many back, I can't rationalise buying more when he really has plenty to wear, in some sizes more than one baby can wear in a month, even a messy baby which he wasn't.
On that note, don't get too many clothes for any size in advance because
(a) you'll get gifts in newborn and 0-3 months at least,
(b) if you get white you'll get very bored of it,
(c) unless your child is absolutely average, you'll mismatch size to season at some point,
(d) you'll still want to buy cute stuff when you see it later and then you'll know what suits them and you.
And really, for a newborn, unless you're going somewhere special to show them off, you'll probably have them live in vests and sleepsuits for a while.
Hopefully my brackets aren't too confusing!
PS, my son's mixed race, which added a whole new spectrum to not liking needles when we had extra blood tests to make sure there weren't some genetic problems or other from my husband's ethnic background, and an extra inoculation for him for BCG just in case of visitors from Sri Lanka. Also bringing up a mixed child means that till you get some experience you have no idea how much sun cream to use or whether you'll know if he's off colour or has a rash, and jaundice for a November baby with darker skin was a major risk, though less so for an August one. I'm very glad he doesn't have a "Mongolian blue spot" as I discovered on MN that that can get mistaken for abusive bruising. But he's a gorgeous little boy who everyone coos over, and he can get away with colours that terribly pale people look awful in and now I'm just hoping this little one will be a reasonably similar shade rather than completely different.
And as I've whittered on for way too long, goodnight, it's bedtime and finally Little Miss Wriglet has gone back to sleep and stopped kicking so I have a chance of falling asleep before she starts up again!