The Story Behind Choosing Baby’s Name
Spoiler Alert: We chose Hayes Nolan Fisher, but I’m sure you already saw that on social media and here to read the meaning behind it ;)
We found out we were pregnant on April 1st, and immediately the next day I started writing down baby names. My original list had about 25 boy names and 1 single girl name. I was so sure he’d boy. I had always wanted a boy and Clay has 3 brothers (no sisters) so I felt like the odds were in our favor. We found out at via a blood test around 12 weeks that he was in fact a boy!
(View photos from the gender reveal here)
The initial stage of coming up with his name felt more like eliminating all the names we couldn’t use…
Reason 1: We both know a lot of people. It kept happening that of the names we liked, one of us knew someone too close to us to use that name or even they had used it for their child. This eliminated names like Leo, Hayden, Ivan, Otti, and Russell.
Reason 2: Clay’s last name is Fisher, so that easily eliminated any first names that end in “-er” as well such as Hunter, Parker, and Asher.
Reason 3: We also didn’t want anything too “water” associated as it would have a dual meaning with the last name Fisher. For example, my middle name is Rivers and I always had it in my mind that I’d use River for my first child. However, River Fisher was not happening lol. I was not going to subject them to a lifetime of bullying and giggles.
Reason 4: We didn’t even debate any first names that started with “F” because it sounded so cheesy with his last name (such as Finley Fisher).
For the first trimester of pregnancy, we were living in Tulum, which has a very open-minded and free-spirited culture. It’s funny to think back about how that influenced us because we were legitimately on board for first and middle names like Indigo, Saffron, Arlo, and Onyx. I still see the beauty in those but I don’t think they are fully authentic to us.
When we moved to The Netherlands, we became surrounded by names like Levi, Noah, Liam, Niels, Finn and Bram. I think that influenced us away from the unique names we were drawn to in Tulum and towards something simple.
Ultimately, we wanted to find a name that landed in the middle between very unique and very common. I hoped we could find a name that neither of us knew someone with, matched our style and would suit our son appropriately from youth to adulthood. There’s a lot of names that I think are cute for babies but don’t age that well and other names that fit a grown man but are too mature for the first two decades of their life.
In June, when I was around 16 weeks pregnant, I really started narrowing in on Hayes. I loved that it sounded both masculine and soft at the same time. I though it flowed well with the last name Fisher. I liked that it was easy to pronounce and spell.
Clay liked the name Hayes but he wasn’t initially sold. He still really liked Rowan, but Rowan means “little red-head” in Irish. Of course we have no idea how he will look but Clay and I both have blue eyes, fair skin and had blonde hair all of childhood. When I picture our baby, I imagine something similar and I think Hayes fits that well. However, if baby boy comes out and does have red hair then maybe he will be a Rowan after all!
After a few weeks of gently trying to convince Clay that Hayes was the perfect name, he started to get more on board for it. Then the craziest thing happened. His mom sent him a photo of a beanie on Etsy with “Hayes” embroidered on it. He replied something like, “wait what why did you send this, did Allison tell you?” and his mom was like “tell me what? I just think it’s a cute name and fits you guys.”
And I swear to you all… I never mentioned it to her! It was 100% a coincidence. At that point, Clay surrendered lol. Doodle in my journal from July.
Then it came time for the middle name.
We marinated over hundreds of middle names all of July, August and September. We debated using family names (such as like James which is my paternal grandpa, my dad’s middle name, and his brother’s middle name) but there was a hiccup with all of them. Hayes already ends with “-es” so James felt very redundant. Circling back to first name issues, we still couldn’t use anything ending in “-er.”
We came to the conclusion that since Hayes sounds soft and flowing, then the middle name needed to start and / or end with more hard syllables like D, M, N, R, T, or V to balance it out. We heavily debated Hayes Rowan and Hayes Michael. One day, I randomly mentioned Nolan and Clay latched immediately. Since I had put more choice into his first name, I really wanted Clay to have final say in his middle as long (as I somewhat liked it). He kept marinating over it and was just like “that’s the one.”
And so it was decided! I know it’s a little uncommon to share the name before the baby is born, but we’ve been calling him Hayes for months so nearly all of our friends and family have known for awhile. We kind of forget that people keep their name choice a secret so we’d accidentally say it and then be like… oh oops yeah that’s his name. After enough “oopsie” moments, we decided it would be fun and special to let everyone know so we could stop referring to him as “baby” and instead as a personified little human with a name.
We figured the worst case scenario of sharing early is that he could come out and Hayes doesn’t suit him. If that happens then no big deal, we will give him a different name that fits and share it then.
