With our 1st, a girl that we adopted at birth, we picked out a boys name and a girls name that we loved but kept it to ourselvles. (the birthmother didn't know if it was a girl or boy) Everyone was furious because we kept the name to ourselves. Abby Grace just turned 3 and we found out this summer we are pregnant, with a girl. Scince everyone was so mad that we kept the names to ourselves last time we decided to share this time. Big mistake!! When my mother in law begged to know, I told her we were going to name her Carys Paige.....I got "oh, so you're going to call her Paige?" I said "No, her name is Carys" When I told my mother, she said " Oh........Well thats a pretty name, I just never heard it before" My advice.....DONT SHARE! Keep something for yourselves until the baby comes. You are the ones who are naming YOUR baby. Don't let anyone influence you or make you choose a name you don't like.

Oh names, names. It's crazy,IMO, but people can be really cruel, especially family. My husband is a "II - second" and so there was a LOT of pressure from his family to name our first son after him, continuing the tradition that his dad had started. I was okay with that, but he was NOT - he hated not having his own name and always getting things like bank accounts confused with his dad. So we decided not to tell anyone. We chose family names for the first and middle names - one from each side and just announced it after he was born. Neither name went over really well - even though they were family names, but people didn't say much because there wasn't anything they could do about it at that point. Plus, there was a cute little baby to go with it.

With our second son, we again picked family names for his first and middle names, but this time we told and I'm sorry we did. I had a really close relationship with my husband's paternal Grandmother, Grace, and we named our son after her - Grayson. Middle name Fredrick, after the men in my family. We got grief for it sounding so old - TONS of questions about spelling and lectures about NOT spelling it "Gracen". We caved and stuck with "Grayson", even after his grandmother passed away two weeks before our son was born, something that I will always regret just a little. So for him, I'm only glad we told because his namessake would have passed before she found out and that was worth it to me, otherwise I would have just kept it a secret like the first time. Frist son - Alphred (Alphie) Clair; both named after grandfathers in our families.

When we told people we were naming our first daughter Amelia we got many comments of "Oh, like Amelia Bedelia." I politely corrected them that we were actually naming her after a childhood hero of mine, Amelia Earhart and left it at that. Now she's 3 and it really doesn't bother me what people say.

If you are firm in your decision of what names you like then make sure you have thick enough skin to ignore comments or else a short explanation of why you love the names you love. My other daughter is Daisy after my grandma and we got a few of the high pitched "pretty" comments with that name choice. I figure whatever name you choose people will have their personal opinions about it. Let them think what they want (they're going to anyway... lol).

I think it depends on how thick skinned you are. If other people's opinions will not affect you, then go ahead and share. for me, other people's opinions bothered me, so a few names were ruined by other's veiwpoints. With our 3rd baby we did not share name ideas.