Picking baby names

So we’ve picked out a name for our baby girl (now I can check that of my list) and I’ve got to give credit to the missus, she did the hard work of finding suitable candidates :) As before we wanted something a little more unique that would still sounds good in several languages.

For the unique part the Finnish Population Register Center and their Name Service was a big help. There you can search for the number of people who have a particular first name born in a particular year. For example since 1900 about 120000 men and 37 women have been named Matti in Finland. Seeing as we got a girl the name Matti would be unique as a girl’s name, but we can’t be that cruel (add reference to “Boy Named Sue” :)

None the less we definitely wanted something in the range 0-500 so as to keep it interesting. Especially since everyone else in the family (except for me that is) fit into that range: Renja (158 persons), Erina (39), Jeremi (jeremi: 135, Jeremy: 270) and then my “score” (Miika: 8586, mika: 39730 :(

Well the missus did it again she found the prefect name that’s unique (in Finland, less than 133 registered) and the name sounds good in several languages. And thanks to a late Formula 1 star (which in no way affected the decision) it has an international “ring” to it: Senna … Senna Hakala (or in Bond terms it would be Hakala … Senna Hakala :)

Hope she likes it as much as I do and hopefully the kids at school won’t find too many ways to make fun of it :)