Expectant parents spend countless hours trying to choose the perfect name for their children. After all, selecting a name for your child is an important job. You want something that you really like since you’ll be saying—sometimes yelling—that name for the rest of your life.

The humorous thing about all the time expectant parents spend dwelling over baby names is that once the baby arrives, he or she is often labeled with a nickname that sticks.

Mark and I spent months trying to decide on a first name for our third child. We settled on his middle name, Robert, soon after we learned we were having a boy. Mark’s maternal grandfather is named Robert. Plus, our twins both have family names for their middle names.

After months of rejecting all the ridiculous names my husband was throwing out (like Boris), I suggested the name Siler (rhymes with Tyler). It’s an unusual name, but we liked it. If I’m being completely honest, I’ll have to say the name grew on my husband. I’m a big fan of unusual names. I felt the name was different but wasn’t too odd. It’s certainly not like being named Apple or Pilot Inspector.

When I worked for a newspaper, I interviewed a young man named Siler. The name has always stuck with me. It’s not every day that someone names a child after the youngest U.S. pizza tossing champion! I thought about stopping in his restaurant and telling him that I liked his name so much that I used it for my own son. Then I thought that might border on creepy, especially if he didn’t remember me interviewing him four years ago.

Soon after Siler was born his nickname took root. As I changed a very smelly diaper, I began singing the tune to “Sponge Bob Square Pants.” I changed the lyrics to Siler Bob Poopy Pants.

Once Siler’s older siblings began repeating the words, I thought I better drop the poopy pants part and save Siler years of taunting and therapy. Now he’s just Siler Bob, which is interesting considering Bob is a shortened version of Robert. That thought didn’t occur to me until weeks after we began calling him Siler Bob. The nickname has caught on, with a few of our extended family members calling him Siler Bob, too.

In addition to Siler Bob, he’s sometimes called Si or Baby Si, Siler Biler or Silermander (so much for finding a name that couldn’t be made fun of by other kids).

My advice for expectant parents is to find a name you like and then toss out some ideas for nicknames. You’ll probably spend more time calling your little bundle of joy by that name anyway.

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