One of the most important discussions you and your spouse will have is on the topic of naming your child. If you're lucky, you'll find a mutually agreeable name early on. But sometimes it's not that simple.

"Deciding on a baby name is stressful for many couples, even when they are largely aligned on name choices," says Julie Ellis, creator of Names That Stick Baby Name Magnets (www.namesthatstick.com). "After all, this is something that they and their child will live with for the rest of their lives. And for those couples who struggle to agree on names, it is all the more stressful."

Most couples start the name discussion fairly early in pregnancy. You try on names for size – family names, names of college friends, popular names. If you're lucky, you'll both fall in love with the same name. Not everyone is that lucky.

"Name discussions often tap into deeper issues like religion, family, people's experiences from their pasts that they may not have discussed openly or even be aware of themselves," says Pamela Redmond Satran, cofounder of Nameberry.com and coauthor of nine bestselling baby name books, including Cool Names for Babies (St. Martin's Griffin, 2008). "It may take more time, patience and care to thoroughly discuss name tastes and their implications than you anticipate."

For Julia Gersen and her husband, culture played a role in their naming difficulties. "My husband – who had never left his native Thailand until we moved to the U.S. a couple of years ago – liked a lot of names that felt plain and unoriginal to me," says the resident of Falmouth, Maine. "While he had only met one or two Sarahs or Jennifers in his life, just about every other person in my elementary school had one of the two names. We tried to come up with some good Thai-American names but struggled with the mispronunciation that would surely occur and the teasing that would ensue."

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