Baby names

These two little girls could be named Clover and Darby, right? Of course, it is Emma and Avery, but it is very easy to get caught up in baby names.

Obviously with the birth of our fourth child around the corner now, Michael and I have been in discussion about what our baby should be named. With names such as James Ryan, Emma Grace and Avery Claire - all of which I still love - we haven't been exactly original. Even the name "Avery" was ranked #38 in 2008 and seems to be going up the list.

Lately, I tend to gravitate towards names that are on the rise but still a little different. So it was rather funny this morning when I read MckMama's blog and her post about "baby name fetish" that you can read here. I recently went through all of my baby names books (I have three that I rely on now) and I scoured every baby name source I have been able to find on the Internet - even reading through baby name polls and such. I made a list of my favorite girls names and my favorite boys names. Truth be told, after doing such thorough research on all of these names I am not even entertaining a lot of other suggestions at this point. I plain just don't care for many of the very common yet popular names.

Anyway, back to MckMama's post...So it was very entertaining to me when I took a look at her suggested baby names and saw many of my same selections on her list. Now granted, there were also a few that I don't think I could actually name my child...Vidalia, no...Austrie, no...but that is me. Reading through everyone's comments to her post made me feel so much better. I am not alone in my different name choices. Plenty of other people like the name "Finn" which has been one of my top boy name choices since 3 years ago when we were expecting with Avery. In fact, had she been a boy instead of a girl, he probably would have been Finn.

So that is pretty much where I am at. We are still in discussion. I still like slightly unusual names. I tend to think the child/person makes (or breaks) the name not the other way around. Think about certain names you just dislike, it is generally because of someone that is or has been named that particular name. Whether boy or girl, our child's name will probably be decided right around the time of his or her birth.

And if you are on the lookout for baby name books, the two I highly recommend right now are "The Baby Name Wizard" by Laura Wattenberg and "A is for Atticus" by Lorilee Craker. Both provide original baby names as well as an explanation for the meaning, name heritage and possible nicknames.

By the way, I knew a little girl in elementary school named Darby. She was probably four years younger than me but we traveled together to a Young Writers workshop. I remember thinking how fantastic it must be to be named "Darby." Funny how you remember names of people like that!