- What's in a name?
That which we call a rose by any other name
would smell as sweet.
Well, Shakespeare, turns out that ain't true,
especially when it comes to baby names.
I don't care how cute your baby is,
the pressure is on for the perfect baby name.
And believe me, when I say everybody you know
has an opinion on your baby's name.
Heaven forbid you wanna name your baby Brad
but your sister-in-law once dated a kid named Brad
who had rancid cheese breath.
I mean, do you really want that association?
Do you want baby Brad, the rancid cheese breath baby?
I don't think so.
Believe me when I say finding
the perfect baby name is not easy.
Luckily, through trial and error,
and some pretty unique techniques,
I was able to find the perfect baby name.
And today I'm feeling nice,
so I'm gonna let you in on that secret.
This is how you find the perfect baby name.
Whether you're looking for a new name for a baby
or yourself, you gotta start with a list.
But where do you find names to put on the list?
Well, you can use your memory.
You can look at objects around you.
Crib, ice cream. Those could be names.
Maybe not good names, but they could be names.
The most common places to look
are books with baby names.
There's a lot of websites, listicles.
The Social Security Administration
has a bunch of baby names.
Those are all easy places to find ideas for names.
If you're really interested in a family name,
you can look old family trees or ancestry.com
to see if there's anything up there
that you hadn't seen before.
This is something that my partner and I did.
There were some gems.
In his family tree, the name Olga came up.
And in mine, the name Capitola.
Now we did not end up going with those names,
so those names are free for the taking, you're welcome.
There are also a lot of different apps
you can use that can help you find a name
that you and your partner can agree on.
You basically both download the app.
You swipe right or left, whether you like the name or not,
and the names that you both like will show up on a list.
So you don't even have to talk
to your partner to find a baby name.
And isn't that the way it should be?
You can also ask social media.
In my case, I asked YouTube commenters
and I got some pretty creative ones.
My also got a lotta,
you know what?
They didn't have my baby's best interest at heart,
let's just say that.
But say, you've checked those places
and you're still like, "Oh, I'm not finding anything."
There are some weirder places you can look.
There's the obituary.
And I know that sounds dark,
but old time-y names are making a comeback now,
so you would actually be very on trend.
And if you're more adventurous,
you can actually go to a cemetery.
I know, again, that sounds very dark,
but my sister, her name actually comes from my parents
going to a family grave site and finding her name.
Okay, so here's the cemetery.
There's a lot of different names.
We're gonna take a look.
What do you think of the name Gavlin?
- [Man] Ursula.
I think Ursula is a cool name.
Ciaran Arthur.
- And finally, when you're making a list,
you might wanna honor your cultural heritage.
And there's a lot of different sites you can look at,
but you can also just go to the Wikipedia page
of your hometown and see who famous is from there.
Alex Azar, Frank Perdue, if you're into chickens.
Or like I said, that could be a bit of a bust.
Just an idea.
Okay, so now you have your list of names.
Congrats, okay.
You're halfway there, but now the real hard work begins.
How do you pick the name from this list?
You probably want something that's unique,
but not too unique.
There's a website called datayze
that is a baby name uniqueness analyzer.
It uses information from the Social Security Administration
and will tell you what the chance your particular baby name
has of being in the same kindergarten class
with somebody of that name.
That could be important to you.
I had a pretty common name
and so I was looking for a name that was not as common.
I do not like it when someone else has my name
and my sister-in-law has my name.
We are both Sarah Burton.
Whether or not you wanna find something super unique,
it's useful because popular baby names
have been trending down.
And by that, I mean a smaller percentage of babies
are given one of the top 10 names
than would have happened 10, 20, 30 years ago.
They're just more names to pick from.
And they're more names being used.
So my baby's already gonna have
a pretty unpronounceable last name.
So it was important to me that their unique first name
was still largely phonetic,
that it could be pronounced pretty easy.
We have a list of names.
Yeah, some of them were from cemetery
and some of them were from the name app,
stuff we both liked.
And I think we do have a front runner
that actually showed up at both places, creepily enough.
But it's a name with a lot of different spellings
and so we have to figure that out.
It never ends.
Another thing you'll have to deal with
is how to spell the name, which can honestly be
as controversial as the name itself.
If you're between a few spellings,
this is a good rule of thumb.
Does this name look like
it came out of the Canterbury Tales?
Does it look Old English?
Are there Y's all over the place?
It's 2021, not 1365.
Finally, probably the biggest way
to narrow down the names is to find out
what your baby's sex at birth will be.
Hi, my name's Sarah Burton
and I just missed a call about test results.
- [Doctor] You are having a baby boy.
- I mean, for me, it helped me stop referring
to my baby as an it, which was nice.
Although this probably isn't as effective as it used to be
because unisex and gender neutral names
are very in right now.
So you think you've zeroed in on a particular name?
Now this is where stuff gets really tricky.
It's the hardest part.
Telling other people the baby's name.
Telling other people the name is the truest test
of whether your baby name sucks.
You can avoid this step
by not telling anybody the baby's name
until the baby is born.
What, are people gonna look at this cute little baby
and tell the baby that the name sucks?
Are they gonna look at baby Brad and be like,
"Oh Brad, you have a rancid cheese baby name,
you stupid, baby"?
No, they're not gonna do that.
You wouldn't say that to a baby.
You would say that to the parents of the baby.
So here's what you should do.
You wanna start slow, introduce the name,
give them the background.
How long, how hard it was for you to get to that name.
They're not gonna jump on you when they know
you've been really struggling with this decision.
All right, so I know I talked big game up top
about how to find the perfect baby name.
I know that that's the whole concept of this video.
There really isn't just one perfect baby name.
There's a lot of perfect baby names
and they're all different for each person.
There are also a lot of bad baby names
and you need to be aware of those.
I'll put them in a list at the end,
just don't pick any of those.
We actually ended up picking a name based on that app.
It was one that we both swiped right on
and we kept coming back to it.
We have a list of names.
Yeah, some of them were from the cemetery
and some of them were from the name app.
And I think we do have a front runner
that actually showed up at both places.
It's also a name you can find in several different cultures,
so it's largely pronounceable.
It's not in the top 100 baby names,
but it is in the top 500 baby names.
Now, my husband does want to wait for us
to tell everyone the name until the baby is born,
so you can't be mean to the baby face.
But, you know, I'm making this video,
so I'm obviously gonna tell you.
The baby's name is going to be (bleep) Burton Hromchak.
(music stops abruptly)
(Beep) Burton Hromchak.
The baby's name is (beep), the baby's name is (beep).
How the hell did he learn to bleep?
That motherf-- (upbeat music)