Baby Naming in Paradise: Big Decisions while Exploring Oahu’s Ka’ena Point State Park

How did you go about choosing names for your children? Or if you don’t have kids, do you know how your name was chosen? Was there a process involved? Maybe you just knew all along…or possibly the name was already picked out for you because of family history or obligations.  Whatever the case may be, I think the ways people decide on names is fascinating.  .

Amazing, really.  I mean, the possibilities are endless, and for me at least, the pressure to choose “correctly” can be overwhelming.

Names got tossed around all throughout both of our pregnancies.  One of us would might make a suggestion, and if it was acceptable to both of us, we might write it down on our list.   Then, after months of brainstorming, the narrowing down, nitty-gritty decision making happened in the same way: On vacation.

For Bergen (now 3.5 years) we sat down while on our official “babymoon” in Birch Bay, Washington, and spent several hours going over possibilities, perusing the baby name book, and studying our family’s genealogy.  We came away with three girl names, 3 boy names, and one name that we felt was gender neutral.  We would then decide during the moments after the birth which name was the most suited for our fresh bundle of joy.

It turns out that “Bergen” was our gender neutral name, and it fit him perfectly.  Someone who is that tough and that much of a fighter (I pushed for 5 hours during labor) needed a strong title, and in Scandinavian Bergen means “mountain dweller”.

When it came time to get to work naming our second little adventurer, we knew we had to stick to this same tradition.  So on one of our date nights during our last big trip before the birth, you might call it a “family moon”, we followed the same procedure. This time though, we were on Oahu’s North Shore and decided to explore Ka’ena Point State Park while we figured it out.  We put together combinations, we’re particular about first, middle & last sounding right together, while we tried not to trip over rocks to explore tide pools and get that perfect view of the sun setting.

Ka’ena Point State Park is on the northwestern tip of Oahu and close to the town of Waialua.  With the coastline being quite rugged here, we were happy to be visiting without our pint-sized adventurer.  It was tricky enough navigating as a 7-months-along-pregnant lady.

Once the sun had set and we’d run out of daylight, we moved on to a local restaurant to get down to business.  Once again, we decided on 3 girl names, 3 boys names, and a gender neutral name.  We used that same book from about 3 and 1/2 years earlier with the same notes and ideas jotted down.  I loved going back and reminiscing about those original choices.  Some of them I’d forgotten about, while others still remained favorites.

And minutes after our sweet red-headed baby girl was born, we knew right away the name that suited her best.  What could be sweeter than a Georgia peach?

  How did you decide what the names of your children would be? Multiple choices…or one favorite? Special location? We want to hear your baby naming stories.

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