Name debate

Our little one can come out as early as in a month, but we still don’t have a name for him!

How do people do it?! A name is the first thing you give as parents, and it can define a person. That’s a big job. There is an added layer of complication, when the baby is “so called” mixed cultures like our case. I am Japanese and M.FR American. We don’t know where we will live and our son will grow up and call home. The name also has to go well with two of our family names, as we plan to hyphenate family names for him.

I know some girls grow up fantasizing how they will name their babies, but I am not one of these. I had no favourite name.  

If I choose a Japanese name, it has to be easy to remember, be pronounced and cannot mean anything we don’t want outside of Japan. M.FR finds it hard that Japanese names need to be considered from two aspects: sound and meaning of Chinese characters we choose. For instance, one name can be written in many different ways in combining different Chinese characters.

I have suggested that we choose one Japanese name and another more western name. I even suggested picking an Indonesian or Nepali name in two countries where he spent a significant amount of time. I proposed a number of Japanese names, which he likes but says nothing “jumps out” yet.

He wants to name after great artists or musicians that he admires. I am fine with it, but I don’t really want to set a path for him. What if he has not interest in art or music?!

Out of sheer desperation and with a suggestion of a friend of ours, we even wrote to Haruki Murakami, Japanese novelist that we both like. He opens a fan site where fans can send comments and questions to him. He promised to read them all and respond to as many as possible. We crafted a message to ask for his advice and sent it, but doesn’t seem like it was picked up…  So, this endeavor got us nowhere.

This naming issue has been a topics of numerous dinner parties, and we also spend quite a bit of time talking about it…..in vain.

People say when you finally meet the baby you know it. Is it really true? Can someone confirm that it will just come to you?