Thanks for the suggestions and ideas about how to find a solution to our names dilemma (if you have more, I am still all ears).
After I wrote the last post, my gut feeling was similar to what Mommy’s Midlife Crisis suggested – that I had already compromised pretty substantially on Girl Name, and compromising on Boy Name as well just felt pretty unfair. I expressed that opinion to Mr. Nishkanu the next day. He did not take to it well, stating that while it was true that he had gotten “his way” on the final pick, that he had compromised a lot on the way. We let it rest a couple of days, then Mr. Nishkanu said that he might be willing to compromise on Boy Name.
I should note that the problem with Mr. Nishkanu’s favorite name is that it flunks one of my central criteria, that the name should be something we pick because it is meaningful to us on some level, not just because it sounds nice. I really think this is something important for a child. My family’s names are all “meaningful”, while Mr. Nishkanu’s family names were all chosen because they happened to be fashionable the year they were born. This is something I have always felt sorry for him about. The name that I would prefer is not as cute as the name he prefers, but it is my brother’s and very close to his (deceased) sister’s name, which I think makes it pretty special.
We are still in negotiation stage, I told him if he can suggest another name which is meaningful to us and which he likes that is OK with me too. At least we have gotten out of the “I must have mine and you must have yours” negotiation breakdown situation.
The School of Hard Knocked-Up 
chicklet said
Names are super tough. We luckily didn’t find it hard to eliminate lots of names (mostly ones the other picked), but where we got stuck for awhile was we both eliminated too many of the others’ choices. So we brought some back. Then we got all anal about it…
We put them in a spreadsheet with columns next to them for him to rank 1-10 and me to rank 1-10 on how much we like them. What this really did was show us that there’s a couple we both are really attached to and that there’s still lots of options. It also got rid of the hurtfulness that was total elimination of names, cuz while they’re ranked low and will never make it, they’re still in the list for us to stare at or discuss in case the top ones bum us out later.
Names are HARD. HARD!
Lisa said
I totally understand. Our little girl is going to have 3 names, all in honor of deceased relatives, and all very meaningful names to us….and I couldn’t imagine doing it any other way!!!