Names were a big deal, some people could handle naming a baby and loosing the child, others couldn't bear naming them. My mother used to do research for pioneer graveyards. The hardest ones she verified were two eleven year old girls with the same name. Their tombstones were so worn it took time to find death records for them each. We assumed that the family must have buried her in one place and then moved her later on. Research showed girl 1 died at age eleven, years later her older brother named a daughter the same name. Girl 2 also died at age eleven. According to the records, the family never used that name again.
I also helped clean and restore the graveyards. People couldn't always afford a gravestone for the baby. Sometimes, all that stood over a baby's grave was a small stone that said "Baby". I always supposed Laura and Almanzo simply hadn't agreed on a name, but couldn't bear to choose one when their son died. They must have thought there would be more children after that. Back then the chances of any child reaching adulthood was low compared to now.
Could you imagine carrying a child and then waiting to see if they would survive after birth? I don't know if I could have given that child a name until I knew they would live. There were so many babies and children buried in the pioneer graveyards. One tombstone always stayed in my memory, three kids died in days of each other from the same family. They each have one side of a square tombstone dedicated to them. And if the family had lost a fourth child, there was the empty fourth space ready.