Picking Your Baby's Name

Everyone knows that parenting can be hard. If you and your partner have different parenting styles or philosophies about how to raise the child, it can be even harder.

But simply picking the child's name can be the first major hurdle for lots of couples since it's not always easy to find a name that you both love.

Pamela Redmond Satran has co-authored three baby-naming books - most recently, "Cool Names: for Babies" - and has some advice on getting through the process.

To start with, she tells The Early Show co-anchor Hannah Storm it is advisable to make a list. Redmond Satran says, "I think you need to both sit down separately with baby-naming books, and it's a good idea to make a Yes List, names you love, as well as a No list."

She notes it is important to make a No list so the names you don't agree on are not going to create trouble in the future. She says, "You're not going to spend nine months trying to convince him, you know, Aliza is a great name for a girl, if he just hates it."

Redmond Satran also recommends asking certain questions. "When you're talking about names, you're talking about deeper, more important issues like gender image, class, family values, ethnic heritages and how you're going to blend those. So sometimes instead of starting with the name, you might want to kind of backtrack and say, 'Wwait a minute. Why is Jack so important to you? What does that mean to you?'," Redmond Satran says.

Of course, it may come to compromise if the couple does not agree on a name they both love. Redmond Satran notes, "Parenting is a joint venture and you're both going to be parents of this child forever. And the name can be a good place to start compromising, start coming up with solutions that may not be the first choice for each of you, but that you both can live happily with."

Here are the most popular baby names in 2002, according to the U.S. Social Security Administration.

Girls

1. Emily
   
2. Madison
   
3. Kaitlyn
   
4. Hannah
   
5. Hailey

1. Jacob
   
2. Michael
   
3. Matthew
   
4. Joshua
   
5. Nicholas

She says, "I think, especially for first-time parents, pregnancy is so exciting and you're so wrapped up in that process and that's become a huge style statement in itself, and I think, you think of the name as a reflection on you, and kind of lose sight of the fact that this 5-year-old and 10-year-old and 15-year-old is going to have to live with this name."