Today I was remembering one of my ultrasounds when I was pregnant with the twins. The first technician looked and looked, and finally said, “I think Baby B is a boy, but I’m going to call in Cynthia for Baby A.” Cynthia came in with the pleased confidence of someone who gets called in when an expert is needed and nearly always justifies that summoning. She was relaxed and ready for this task. She looked for a long, long time—unhurried, not acting as if she had been called away from something she needed to rush back to. Then she said, “I’d say Baby B is a boy. And what do you have so far?” and I said “Two boys.” Another long look and then she said, “And are these the only grandchildren in the family?,” and I said yes. And then she said, “Then I’m only going 70% on Baby A being a girl.” By which I understood that she was pretty sure, but didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes too high. Wise.
I went back into my journal to see when this happened (24 weeks—they checked at 18 weeks but couldn’t tell with either baby; imagine the disappointment) and whether I’d remembered it right (seems so, but I didn’t write down as many details there as I wrote here), and I encountered my lists of names. Those were very fun to look through, especially because some of them surprise me: I have Mark and Lauren on the boy/girl list, and I don’t remember considering EITHER of those names.
I see we were still considering the name Emerson, which surprises me: what I’d remembered is that we considered that name seriously during the first half (before we knew it was a boy) of the first pregnancy and then never again. But here I am, completely wrong: on the girl/girl list I have Emerson and Marin, Emerson and Rowan, Emerson and Imogen. Emerson never made it to the Serious Contenders list, but I’m surprised to see it at all.
Girl/girl combinations I still like: Jane and Eliza, Imogen and Elena, Elizabeth and Genevieve, Emily and Liana.
Boy/girl combinations I still like: John and Genevieve, Charles and Elizabeth (I think that set got ruled out for being too royal-family, but I like it anyway).
The list of boy/boy combinations looks much less enthusiastic: it’s about a third the length of the girl/girl list. Joel and Dean would have been nice. Calvin and Malcolm. I’m surprised to see Collin on there; I didn’t remember considering that name. I’m so glad I wrote all this down.
Calvin! I want that name one day. Alas, husbands who also have opinions.
You’re doing better than me – I have absolutely no recollection of anything to do with the Pick A Name process with my two, it just seemed as though their eventual names were obvious and not worth thinking about!
This makes me so glad I saved the lists my husband and I made when I was pregnant!
When did you find out for sure (or with more confidence) that Elizabeth was a girl? Could they tell better in later ultrasounds, or did you not find out for sure until they were born?
At the 30-week ultrasound, the technician used the word “definitely” for both babies’ sexes. It was especially pleasing because they’d told me at an earlier ultrasound that sometimes with twins it gets harder to tell the sexes as the pregnancy goes on (I can’t quite remember the WHY of that–something about more bones to be in the way?), so I’d thought the 18-week ultrasound was my best chance and the 24-week ultrasound might be my last chance.
Argh, I am imagining the disappointment at the 18-week u/s when you couldn’t find out for EITHER baby. It must have been crushing!
The list of unused baby names is so thrilling to read about. I love seeing the various pairings. Calvin and Malcolm! Fun. How do you like to pronounce Genevieve? John-Vee-Ehv? Jen-eh-Veev? I can never decide which way to pronounce it in my head, though I think it’s pretty either way.
I think they’re both so pretty too! The way we were thinking of was JEN-eh-veev.
I’m surprised how many of the names that i considered are on your list– Collin with two Ls for instance. And Genevieve. I wanted “Silver Dollar Names” that could be shortened easily and recognizably. So we went with Stephen and Jonathan, and after 19 and 16 years respectively i still love those names, and have used the accompanying nicknames as needed. There’s always so much talk about the godawful names you see, but so much less about fitting and resonant names.
my cousin had twins she named John and Genevieve! they are 7 now. love these names.
I don’t have children yet (hopefully in a year or two!) but I do have my notebook full of baby name ideas from (I confess) 4th-7th grade. Yeah, I tell people that I kept a notebook of baby names that young and I get the concerned look. Every time. Like, even as a small child I was considering pregnancy or something and this was not ok. But anyway the earliest non-classmate influenced pairing were twin girls named Laurel and Hazel and I loved those names so much for years! Until my mother told me they reminded her of Laurel and Hardy. I just find it so interesting that way back then I had tastes that it seems everyone else my age shares. I know quite a few baby Hazels, no Laurels but that sound combination seems to be quite popular (I know Ellas and Loreleis under two).
I love this! I have 4-month-old girl/girl twins and I read all of the twin posts in your archives about a zillion times while I was pregnant and kept wishing you had more stuff about your twins. For name fun, we also have two older boys: Colin (4), Graeme (2), and the twins are Megan and Molly. If they had been two boys we would have named them Harrison and Ian. I lovelovelove the name Harrison and was definitely bummed I wasn’t having another boy since my husband had finally agreed to using it! And for the record, my oldest turned 4 a month before I had the girls and they are only 20 months younger than my second son, so I am right in the middle of the toddler + two infants phase right now and holy hell when am I ever going to sleep again?? I cannot imagine having a fifth after this one, so I have more respect for you every day I deal with 4!
Did you use names for subsequent children? I mean, I guess that would just be Henry, but I mean, did you have boy names that you didn’t use for your first that you would want to use again? My mom always talked about what my name would have been if I were a boy but it’s not my little brother’s name, and he was only born 16 months after I was. I had a boy and then three girls in a row so I never got to prove the theory – I think I would have used my second boy name, but who knows. Anyway, I’m just curious.
Yes and no. One of the names I liked for our firstborn, Paul didn’t like much. But when I was expecting our second, I put it on the list again and Paul chose it as his favorite, and we used it. BUT: our likely girl-name choices for our first and second children (we found out the sex mid-pregnancy, so we never settled for sure on a girl name either of those pregnancies), we didn’t use for our actual girl.
Calvin & Malcolm!!!!
I wonder what you think now about Emerson as a girl’s name? That was a strong contender for Michael’s name if he’d been a girl.
I think it’s one of the good surname names. I’m also relieved we didn’t use it, because we went such a different way with our naming style and I think we would have run into problems if we’d started with that.