Baby Name Central

It might be that your baby is born sooner than planned, or that the little girl whose name you painstakingly chose turns out to be a little boy. It could be that your labor and delivery goes so quickly that your partner can't get home from a business trip to be with you.

Maybe you've changed your mind en route to the hospital or while in labor. Or, one of you starts to doubt the name you've chosen when faced with registering the child's birth certificate. Whatever the reason, you're left wondering: should you choose Sarah or Nora? Nick, Jack, or Jake?

Oh, what in the world are you going to name your baby? And, how long can you wait to do it?

Feeling the pressure
Kristen Hains' son was born on a Sunday and didn't have a name until Wednesday afternoon. "It probably would have taken me longer but we were being released from the hospital, and in order to not complicate things, I figured I should name him before I left," she says.

Hains, a single mom, never imagined that naming a child would cause her so much turmoil. "I kept thinking, 'What if I give him a name and he hates it?' or 'What if I give him a name and then that name doesn't fit him?'" Hains finally landed on the name Nicholas, which she says fits her son perfectly.

But she does advise name wafflers to listen to their intuition and not give in to hospital or family pressure to choose a name too soon. "Anytime people call him by the wrong name, it's always Christopher," she says. "And since that was other name I was considering, I wonder if he was supposed to be a Christopher, and if I named him too soon."

Taking their time
"If you don't come up with a name, we'll put 'baby' on the birth certificate." That's what April Paffrath was told by the hospital staff when she couldn't choose a name. But Paffrath and her husband took their baby daughter home to contemplate a name while getting to know their new daughter. "We thought about it a couple of days and then she just seemed to step into one of the names, and that was it."

And how did they handle completing the paperwork? Paffrath's daughter's name, EsmŽ Luz -- not "baby" -- is on her birth certificate. "My husband read the hospital the riot act for pressuring us when we were getting to know our new daughter," says Paffrath.

What if you wait?
Anne Cortland, RN, a New York City labor and delivery nurse, says it's OK to rely on nicknames and terms of endearment to coo at your baby if you haven't chosen a name. "Babies don't begin to recognize their own name until sometime around 5 months," she says, "so waiting a few days or even a week won't cause any developmental delays."

Names last a lifetime, so don't let family, friends, or even well-meaning hospital workers pressure you into giving your baby a name before you're completely ready. Choosing the one or two words that will define your child -- for the rest of his or her life -- is a tall order.

Luckily, you have quite a bit of time -- probably more than you realize -- before you have to legally finalize your baby's name. And, although just how long you have varies from state to state, Cortland says parents shouldn't feel pressured to have a name before arriving at the hospital, or to choose one before leaving.