The Name Game

Much to my dismay, we are stilled undecided on a girl name for this baby. I thought we had settled on one a couple weeks ago but then I think in retrospect, I was actually just settling so that the decision could be over. The name we chose was "ok" but it didn't excite me. That's probably not a very good sign. When Graham told me on Wednesday that he was uncertain again too, I burst into tears. I'm pretty sure some phrase like "Don't alter my equilibrium!" may have escaped from my lips. But really, I'm so thankful we are reconsidering again.

We have just had so many rules:
1) it can't be too popular
2) it can't sound too much like "Isla" if yelled up the stairs (ex: Ella, a name that I just love)
3) it needs to have a good meaning or at least not mean something horrid like "born with a crooked nose"
4) it can't end in "er" because that sounds funny paired with "Crozier"
5) it needs to be unique but not crazy unique--one of us needs to have heard of someone named it before
6) it would probably be nice of us to use a family name
7) we both need to love it
8) we also need to love the nicknames that go with it
9) it should sound good paired with Isla (because we'll forever be listing our kids' names off to people)
10) it needs to be more than one syllable in length
11) it needs to be less than three syllables in length
12) guess that leaves us with only two syllable names
13) European names are nice
14) maybe we should give all our kids names that have an island or water theme
15) or maybe they should all have something to do with months of the year (Isla June)

And the list continues. As you can see, we made the whole ordeal nearly impossible. But now push is coming to shove and eventually we will need to choose something. I think I am having such a hard time partially because we have spent so much time researching (like we tend to do with vacations and other important decisions in our life) and reading and re-reading name books that nothing sounds news and fresh and exciting to me anymore. There are moments where I can't remember what I like anymore and goodness knows I can't find anything that fits our 15 rules!!! It's like I am secretly hoping that the baby is just going to come out with a name written on it in sharpie (wouldn't that be...uhhh....nice? Not.) Or that the baby will be whisked away from me for a brief time and then come back with a name. Voila!

But really, I want neither of those two options and so I've decided to throw most all the rules out the window! I gone through the list of all the names we've ever loved and have whittled it down to the ones that make me giddy. And I'm deciding not to care how unique or popular they are. Although we are still going to "wait until we see the baby" to decide on our final pick for sure, by golly, this baby is going to have a name! And I am going to just love it!