You’d be surprised just how many people ask me this question. It never fails to make me giggle when I explain that it’s actually kind of correct.

We had a list of several names for Dex when he was born. We knew we were having a boy which made the putting together of a shortlist that little bit easier. In fact, we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to keep his sex a surprise anyway as he was a bit of an exhibitionist at his 32 week 3D scan. Yep - he wasn’t keen on showing us his face but was very excited to show mummy and daddy his willy. What a waste of £95 that was!

Dexter was born at 38 weeks via emergency c-section due to my placenta abrupting. I’d always believed I would carry to term so wasn’t expecting him when he decided he’d had enough of my tummy. I know every parent will tell you the same, but we fell in love with him instantly.

As both Craig and I have dark hair and tan easily, I guess we expected Dexter would too. When the doctor handed us our porcelain-skinned blonde miracle, we had to double-take. It threw us completely and meant that all our shortlisted names just didn’t seem to suit him. Because of this, he started his little life being referred to as The Baby and for the next six weeks took on various aliases.

As the birth registry date loomed we were still no further forward. Then, sleep deprivation and panic made me do a ridiculously stupid thing. I put Dexter’s fate to the public vote on Facebook. Choosing a name for your first-born child is probably up there with choosing a university degree, or buying a house in terms of importance, but this idiot put a selection of our best names before dozens of people I hadn’t seen for 15 years! Craig wasn’t impressed, lots of people commented calling me a prat, and my best friend called round with a thermometer to check I wasn’t seriously ill. It is perhaps the single most stupid I’ve done since agreeing to abseil down a building when I’m terrified of heights (I got stuck halfway down and cried - the organisers had to come and rescue me and it made the local papers… I still haven’t lived this one down).

To be honest, I wouldn’t have gone with a majority verdict from Facebook anyway, but I wanted to see if anyone would laugh at our shortlist. Craig was definitely up for a traditional name, but the ones I liked were more obscure. If someone had responded with “What the hell kinda name is that?!”, I would have struck it off immediately, but luckily no one did. The most popular names were Jake and Dexter which were our favourites anyway so I can’t say my moment of insanity helped us out at all. The only good that came out of it was that I finally got around to testing out the poll function on Facebook.

So Craig’s favourite (Jake), was up against mine (Dexter). Unfortunately I felt that Jake was too popular, and Craig thought Dexter might get our son teased at school. I wasn’t budging though. I’d been addicted to tv box sets during my maternity leave (I used pregnancy as an excuse to lay in bed and pretty much do nothing - given I’ve just posted about being the size of a whale, this hasn’t actually changed if I’m honest) and Dexter was one of my favourites. Perhaps it was because I feel asleep several times with the DVD on and it was implanted in my subconscious, or maybe it was down to the fact I have a small crush on the serial killer (I know, I know) - either way I was insistent on it.

Just a few days before our appointment at the registry office, we went to a BBQ at a friend’s house that was to double as a ‘welcome to the world’ party for Dex. It was quite embarrassing being given ‘It’s a Boy!’ cards with no name inside. We promised ourselves his name would be decided at the end of the night and set about pitching our names to our friends. Given Craig’s biggest concern was that Dexter might not be received so well in the schoolyard, I was really lucky that some of our friends had teenage sons and daughters who testified once and for all that Dexter wouldn’t get his trousers pulled down in front of his mates. Finally Craig began to relax about it.

And so I did what any cunning mummy would do to win the argument - I got Craig drunk. By about 9pm my beautiful son Dexter Thomas Mills was finally named!

Now I wonder how Craig will react when he finds out I want to name our next son Carson…

 

This post is linked to the brand new Netmums Real Baby Name Guide. If you’d like to share your own baby naming story - you can get involved here.