"What's in a name?"

For those do not recall this most famous line from Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," the entire quote is:
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

Here Juliet is expressing her love for Romeo despite the fact that he bears the Montague name. The meaning behind this quote is that a person's name simply does not matter, nor does it define who a person is.

You are probably wondering what Brit Lit has to do with us. Phil and I, as soon-to-be parents, are faced with the overwhelming task of choosing a name for our child. Exactly how do you select the perfect name ? As much as we would like to think a name does not matter, to parents, and later on the child, it really does.

Our first step was to buy a baby name book. Phil took on this task and came back from Barnes & Noble with a great book- 100,001 Baby Names. Oh yes, this is wonderful. There is no reason why we can't find the perfect name! I toted this book with me all over the UK, opening a page here and there to see what I could find. What I realized after reading all of the girl "A" and "B" names is that 99,800 of these names I would not even think about giving my child. So the book now sits collecting dust on the bookcase.

We have established a short list of rules:
1) No names from the top 20 names of 2007 Social Security Administration List. I like the name Jennifer, but I had 10 classmates with the same name...did you know it was the #1 girl's name for an entire decade?
2) Children's names of our friends and family are off limits.
3) Pet's names are also out- I really liked Henry until I realized our baby would share a name with our dog Hank. Weird! Katie, Maggie, and Nick are also off the list.

And suggestions from others- we've had a few of those also. My personal favorite has been Rasputin. No doubt this one was meant as a joke, but it's still funny.

We have a short list and will most likely continue to change our minds over the next few months, although we probably won't tell, not matter how often we are asked, what our faves are:)