Who decided your baby's name?

When I was five-month pregnant, we both, husband-wife, started thinking about our soon-to-be-coming baby’s name. It was actually a big responsibility to carry. We were to pick a name for our baby's life time. Honestly, the magnitude of thinking about it was huge. Every night I used to ask my husband the same question, "Did you find any good boy and girl names?" and he used to give me the same reply, "I forgot." I thought I would find it by myself. After a massive thinking and searching, I came across names of my best linking, "Nishkarsh" (which means result in English) for boy and "Santati"(which also means result in English) for girl. I found these names apt because they’re unique, have some meaning and most importantly starting with letter 'N' and ‘S’. My husband's name starts with letter 'N' and mine with 'S' so all my conditions were getting accomplished with these two names. I told these names to my husband and he was also happy with them.

However, the names parents are short listing for their unborn baby have always been a matter of discussion for other people and you can’t get through this. Same happened to me as well. Along the way, I noticed that after due date and gender inquiries comes the question of names. We, husband-wife, heard plenty of the options for names, not only when my son was inside, also when he was finally outside. I appreciate those who were supportive of my pregnancy and wanted to know details. But I realized that when any lady is pregnant, people, let me be specific, the well wishers, assume her naive. As if she is not able to think and do wisely. So I faced people making joke on the name which I selected "you’re going to name your baby THAT?!" And yes, that has been said to me. Many times!

Even after when my son safely came into this world and we, husband-wife, shared the baby boy’s name we decided, our relatives gave us strange looks. "Nishkarsh, is that a name?", "It’s so difficult in pronouncing", "Oh, so with this name you want to convey that your son is ‘result’ of your love" I was so puzzled hearing such comments. And we (husband-wife) gave up with giving our relatives a chance to change the name. Sadly no one could help us and even after a week they couldn’t agree upon a single name. But I must say they were successful in mystifying us (husband-wife) about the very name which we decided with so much of zeal and love.

There are only few people in total that I personally asked "What do you think about the name of my baby?" My husband, my parents and my in-laws. And I wanted to hear their opinion, feeling and thoughts for the one which I decided. But beyond that I asked for no other opinions. And still I got them! When anyone else asked the names we were considering I never followed my answer with "do you like those names?" Not even once. Yet I met with lemon faces (the face one makes when eating a lemon), direct dismissals and the unwanted, "you should name him X." And again, point to be noticed : I didn’t ask!

I know people were trying to be helpful, but it was a blunt denial of our choice and the thought we had given to this great task. After that, my husband and I had a long talk and we made a decision. Of course we knew there was no harm intended when people shared their opinions about our names, but it could smudge our judgment and could make us confuse. We’re only human, we get influenced. So we decided that our name idea will stay just that. Ours. No influence, no judgment, no interference. Now people know our son as “Nishkarsh” and I love when they call him with the name that I had first given to him with my naive mother instinct. 

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