Nine months seems like ample time to pick a baby name, but somehow, I still managed to mess it up. When my daughter was just a month old, I gazed at her tiny, adorable face and thought, “This little one is certainly not a ‘Jasmine.’” Oh boy, I realized we had chosen the wrong name.
Initially, I kept my thoughts to myself, convincing myself that I would eventually warm up to it. After all, Jasmine just needed to grow into her name—or maybe I did. Family and friends called her Jasmine, and I silently cringed. To be fair, it was her name, so I often referred to her as “the baby” or tested out names like Mia or Zoe when no one else was around.
As time went on, I casually broached the subject with my husband, saying, “What are your thoughts on changing Jasmine’s name?” He looked at me as if I had lost my mind, especially since our daughter was already six months old. But since he knew my quirky nature when he married me, I felt it was partly his fault!
After two more months of back-and-forth, we finally decided to start calling her a different name when she turned eight months old. Yes, eight months of being “Jasmine” before we settled on “Autumn.” I confess, I borrowed the name from a character on the now-defunct Fox series, “The O.C.” While some parents might look to athletes or celebrities for inspiration, I find that naming a child after a character from a delightful teen drama has its own charm.
In today’s world, changing a child’s name is no simple task—especially in New York City. The authorities wanted to ensure that my child wasn’t part of some nefarious plot or trying to escape a legal entanglement. While I can’t vouch for every moment of her naptime, I believe she’s led a pretty honest life up until now.
It took me six visits to the civil court to get her name officially changed to Autumn. During one visit, I watched as various individuals stood up to request their name changes. There was a man wanting to swap his name to something like “Woo Woo,” a transgender person seeking a more feminine name, and a father wishing to Americanize his children’s names. Lastly, there was a woman who couldn’t even recall what her middle initial “H” stood for. In that moment, I realized two things: first, being a judge in New York City must be wildly entertaining, and second, I wasn’t as crazy as I thought.
If you’re in the process of selecting the perfect name for your baby, you might find inspiration in our extensive baby name database.
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In summary, naming a child can be a daunting task, and it’s not uncommon to second-guess your choices. My journey from “Jasmine” to “Autumn” proved that it’s never too late to make a change.