Those of you starting or adding to your families may want to check out the Baby Name Map, a Google Maps mashup that shows you the popularity of baby names in the U.S., Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, and the U.K. (Thanks to Lifehacker for the tip. They also mention NameVoyager, which displays the history of baby name frequency over time, and Nymbler, which recommends names based on other names you like.)
Of course, for many of us LGBT parents, the question is not what we will call our children, but what they will call us. The most common dyads seem to be Mommy-Mama and Daddy-Papa (with the first in each set shortened to “Mom” and “Dad” as the child ages), but Baba also seems popular among non-biological mothers. We were boring and went with the standard, although my partner prefers the spelling “Momma.” (We also don’t fall into the typical bio/non-bio categories of couples who bear children, since I’m the genetic mother and my partner is the gestational one.)
Last names may also be problematic. To pick one parent’s name? To hyphenate or not to hyphenate? To all change to a common family name? The fear of our son marrying someone with a hyphenated last name kept us from giving him the same. This way, if he ever has kids, they won’t end up with names that make them sound like European royalty. We did, however, choose his first, last, and middle names so he has a little bit from each of our families.
Not to mention that we call him “Sweetie,” “Buddy,” “Pumpkin,” and about a dozen other terms of endearment as the mood strikes us. I’m also sure we’ll both become “Hey!” as he grows older.
How did you go about naming your children and your parental selves?
9:03 am
Family Creation, Selves and Identities
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Paula The Surf Mom
on Oct 13th, 2007
@ 10:30 am:
My twin totters have LEGAL Names… but right now one thinks her name is ‘HEY Stop that’ and the other thinks her name is ‘No No’.
hw
on Oct 14th, 2007
@ 8:44 pm:
Well, our kids already came with names, so we didn’t have much a say on that.
When they asked for parental names, we tried to set up Mom-Mama. In reality, we’re “Mom” and “No, not you, the OTHER Mom.”
Liza
on Oct 15th, 2007
@ 6:54 am:
We did a legal name change to hyphenated after our wedding; our son shares our last name.
For us, the decision was rooted in wanting to be instantly recognizable as a family. Yes, sometimes at the airport we’ve been asked if we were sisters, which is not ideal, but better than being perceived as “just friends.”
Incidentally, our name change process, which we did ourselves, was expensive and time consuming. It cost a total of a little over $1200 (most for the publication of the announcement) and took 1.5 days off work, running around the court house where we lived at the time, and the Social Security Administration office.
Renee
on Oct 15th, 2007
@ 9:02 am:
We go with Ima (Hebrew for Mom) and Mama. There have been a million variations on those – including Ami, Ama, Mima, etc… but we know who she means!
DivaJean
on Oct 15th, 2007
@ 9:06 am:
Thirteen years ago, I began living with my assumed name- ie hubby’s last name so that when we had kids, we would be of one surname. I eventually got everything changed over- even my social security- but this was before 9/11.
My children are all namesakes for the grandparents- which was a tradition we started to help the grands deal with foster/adopted grandkids, kids of color. They came around without any need for that, but we wanted to be sure– hence my daughter being named after my mom, my son named in an Italian name like his grandfather, etc.
J
on Oct 15th, 2007
@ 1:36 pm:
That’s interesting. “Baba” means “Daddy” in Arabic, so we weren’t going to touch that one (and it’s what I call my Dad.) So I’m Mommy or Uma and my partner is Mama (with spanish accent on the last ‘a’.) And we have an very long, double hyphenated Mexican-al-Arab last name. Poor little girl. She will have a hard time learning to spell it all.
FosterAbba
on Oct 16th, 2007
@ 12:47 am:
Our kid (older foster child) calls us by our first names.
Meredyth
on Oct 16th, 2007
@ 11:01 am:
I took my partner’s name after we got married so that our children would have the same name. There was no way I could deal with hyphenating.
I’m Mommy, she’s Ommi (aka ‘other Mommy’).