baby names

being six months pregnant, baby names have definitely been on my mind.  so, when a family member recently sent me this poem, it really rang true with me.

Naming the Baby

by Faith Shearin

When you are dreaming of the name

you are also dreaming of who they

might be. They are invented in darkness —

under cloak of skin — and, for the better

part of a year, are a swelling

or a set of symptoms. The name

books are like a box of chocolates

and when you open them you see

how many kinds there really are.

There are names of people you

have known and disliked and names

that make the wrong sounds and names

that suggest your child will be

like everyone else's. There are names

that turn your child into a character

in a novel and names that recall

the time when your great grandmother

was young. Naming the baby is a way

of dreaming about a creature who is

almost but not quite. It is a way of

imagining the soul of a person you

are making but have not made.

The name is the first way you see

the baby: their title, the syllables

that conjure a shape from the lantern.

[source]

- E