Baby Names

You know? None of the eleventeenmillion blog posts I've written in my head in the last couple weeks involved any discussion of baby names whatsoever. But I'm tired and achy and just a little bit blown away by life at the moment. Because dude.

I mean, Ish and I moved in together, into this apartment, last February 15. If all goes well, we'll be leaving it soon. And I tell you what. I knew when we moved in that I could not possibly foresee the circumstances under which we'd be moving out again. Would we be moving out together or separately? If separately, would our break-up have been amicable? Or would we be moving together to another apartment? A bigger one? A smaller one? A place we'd...own?

Never did I think that just one tiny little year later I'd have left my job and that we'd be moving to a house, in Napa, and that we'd be married and I'd be pregnant.

See? Dude.

And yes, I am looking forward to it all, of course I am. But it is a lot to take in, and not just because I've come a long way from where I was a year ago. Let's be fair. It hasn't been that long since I was splayed on the bathroom floor in a big stupid house in Connecticut, sobbing hysterically to no one because my husband had left me and my mother was dying and I couldn't envision my future, or any future at all.

Which is to say that all these life changes are great and huge and when I start to put them in context, they're even greater and huger and I'd love to have some time to just let it all sink in.

Ha! Except!

I can't very well just go flitting about, pondering and pontificating and tra-la-la-ing while things magically sort themselves out. (Although that would be cool. I picture myself skipping through a meadow with some ridiculous sun hat on, and when I return from my jaunt I discover that all our stuff got packed up and moved by elves! And there were no issues with the mortgage! And we're settled in our home and oh! The baby was born! Fiddle dee dee!)

But right. No. And all this is a very roundabout way of saying that, while I'm busy trying to sort out all the emotional "whoa"ness going on, life isn't getting put on hold.

Which brings me -- yay! -- to the point of this entry.

The baby is still due in a few months and we haven't bought any baby anything yet. I haven't taken a single class, or read more than a few pages here and there in a couple books. I still mostly think this pregnancy is totally surreal, and I'm in some fairly considerable disbelief about it.

Thus this baby most certainly does not have a name yet.

So, ah, wanna help?

Here's where we're coming from:

We are trying to avoid names in the Top 100 most popular lists, and if possible, even names in the top 500.

We like a lot of old-fashioned and traditional names, but surprisingly, many of those are on the current most popular lists. (Ex: Isabella)

We do like untraditional and interesting names, too...from history, Hollywood, or literature especially. We're very open to last names as first names, and even to boy names.

I do not, however, like made-up names. And if it's something you can imagine Britney liking, I will probably hate it. (Anything of the Brayden/Jayden variety is really just not my style.)

We don't care if the name is hard to spell.

I don't plan to change my last name, but the baby will have Ish's last name of Bartlett.

We are primarily of British, Celtic and German descent.

I also personally like French names, and I really like names with long and short A sounds.

I don't really want to provide examples of specific names we're considering, because I'd prefer not to have them shot down (everyone does it, myself included). But just to give you a small taste, one of my most favoritest names is Ava -- and see? It has both the long and the short A sound. Unfortunately, it's the #1 name for 2008 and also Ish vetoed it. So oh, well.

One of our actual still-on-the-list possibilities is the name Maeby. (Yep.)

So...any thoughts? Suggestions?

We'd love your help!