As a little girl, I did all the girly things you could imagine: played Barbies, dress-up, had tea parties with my stuffed animals, and most days consisted of my best friend and I playing “house.” Well, naturally when you play those things, you choose names. You choose names for your baby dolls, your stuffed animals, your Barbies, and even yourself at times. I always had my go-to, favorite names that I would use over and over and just imagined that one day those names would be the names of my actual children. Boy, was I wrong.
When Kyle and I started dating, I realized that the majority of his family members all had names beginning with K. He eventually enlightened me by telling me that it’s just the way things were and when he has kids of his own, he plans on doing the same thing.
There it went. All my childhood dreams, just crushed in one statement.
Totally kidding! Although my list of baby names did exist, not many of them began with K’s…and there were definitely no boys names that began with a K. But, that’s why they make a “delete” button, right?
Here’s the thing about names…as a teacher, you have a lot of students over the years. And every student leaves you with a lasting memory. You go through friendships and middle school and high school and college and meet a lot of people along the way. Naturally, you associate those names with those people you know. That makes choosing a baby name tough. And now I had this other hurtle of narrowing it down to names that only began with K. I figured I would “fight it” a little and see what happens.
Needless to say, I lost the battle. But not because Kyle said “no.” I lost the battle because he agreed to do names that didn’t start with K, but I saw how much it really meant to him. I knew we could make this baby-naming thing fun and still carry on the Kniss tradition!
Truthfully, we had built a list of baby names later on in our relationship when we started talking more seriously about life, the future, and kids. Anytime we agreed on a name, I’d add it to our list in my phone. Silly, but I needed to remember for this very day.
As all (or many) of you know, I am a planner. You better believe we had the first and middle name for Baby K picked out the moment we found out she was a girl. But there’s a reason, or a couple, why no one knows her name yet.
Mainly because we want to hold onto something about our journey as a secret, surprise, and have an exciting announcement. Through all the ups and downs, we want to be able to announce something in an exciting way. Our initial pregnancy loss made us weary about announcing this pregnancy. The cystic hygroma diagnosis made us feel uneasy about our gender reveal. So, Baby K’s name is our thing.
Another reason is based on opinion and reaction. When someone tells you what they want to name their baby, unless they blatantly ask for your opinion, DON’T GIVE YOUR OPINION! Especially if it’s negative. That’s just rude. Be supportive. If you had no part in helping to make that baby, then you don’t have a right to weigh in on what that baby’s name is or is going to be. Your job is to be supportive and love that baby no matter what.
If you’re the type of person that can’t wait to keep your baby’s name a surprise, go for it! Announce away! If you want to keep it a secret, good for you (although good luck not slipping, it’s hard!). Do what YOU want. There is no right or wrong way. Especially today.
Feel free to make some guesses on Baby K’s name! It’s been fun hearing some ideas. Soon enough, you will all be able to put a sweet little face with a name for Baby K 🙂
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