Naming doubts. Did I choose too weird a name, and am I about to do it all over again?
"Lord, what fools these mortals be!"
My son is 1.5 years old. When he was born, we convinced ourselves that a really unique name was the right choice for a variety of reasons. But I began doubting the choice a few weeks later and it's been eating at me ever since.
His name is Oberon.
My partner still loves it. We often call him O.B. (his initials) Obie1 or Bear (Barry or Ron could be future options). We live in a part of the United States where offbeat names are very common, and no one has said anything negative (occasionally we get really positive comments from Shaekespere lovers). His older brother also has a very rare name (Pascal) which feels like a perfect fit and I have never regretted for an instant. But despite all that, I still feel like we took it too far and like everyone must be secretly judging our weird name choice whenever I tell it to anyone.
Be honest. Is it that bad or am I overthinking?
We're expecting another boy soon. We're still both drawn to uncommon and off-beat names, but this time around I've also been suggesting more traditional names too like Hugo, Desmond, Solomon or Leander. But we also feel a strong pull to Ambrose which seems like a closer match to his brothers and has the cool nn option of Bram (or his older brothers could call him Bro).
Would this just be repeating the same mistake and setting myself up for another round of regrets? And even if Ambrose isn't too weird, does it seem like too matchy a combination with Oberon?
Update
Thank you for all the kind words!!! It was such a pleasant surprise to find so much support on the internet. You all are awesome and helped extinguish my doubts and rekindle the love I had for this name when he was born.
And thanks even to those of you who left negative comments - I asked you to for honest feedback and you gave it, which ironically helped reinforce the positive comments by showing me that you all are being real and if someone says something especially nice they probably genuinely meant it.
We're still debating the next one's name, but that's just because we really like all these options so much (you've reinforced our love of Ambrose, but we still love the others too especially Hugo and Desmond). Good problem to have ;)
1 You all definitely convinced me to spell his nickname Obie from now on. It wasn't exactly a major change considered I'd been pronouncing it Obie all along and never actually thought about how to spell the nickname until yesterday. When I looked back at text messages with my partner I realized she's been spelling it Obie all along and I've been inconsistently switching between OB, Obi, and Obie (and occasionally Obituary -- stupid autocorrect!)