What's In A Name?

A name... your name... is a very important thing.  It is the essence of your identity and the one word that you will hear more than any other throughout your entire life.

In all honesty, I grew up not particularly liking my name.  In grade school, 3 of my BFFs were named "Katie" (well, Kathleen, Katherine, etc... but all went by Katie).  I was super jealous that I was not a part of the Kool Katie Klub and wanted badly to be a Katie too.  I wanted to fit in with the Kool Krowd.  :)

Now that I am a bit older and feel that I have finally found my own identity, I like my name.  It is not very very common, but also not so unique that people mispronounce it or give me strange looks when I introduce myself.  Aside from a once loved pop singer and a certain disgusting mistress with a thing for cigars (thank you, Monica Lewinski)... my name has pretty much flown under the radar... which is good.  So, I guess you can say it has grown on me.

So now, Kevin and I are blessed (aka cursed) with the task of deciding on a name for our baby-to-be.  Since we have decided to stay "Team Green" (not find out the gender until the baby is born), not only do we have to decide on one name, but now we have to have a name ready for a boy or girl.  This is no small task.  The name we decide to give our son or daughter will be the very beginning buds of their identity as their very own little human being.  And... well... they are going to be stuck with it for the rest of their life.

Last night, as well as a few other nights over the past month or so, Kevin and I sat at Barnes and Noble with our coffees, desserts and a mile high stack of baby names books and scoured over than until we were cross eyed.  We settled on a boys name (nope, not telling, sorry)... but we are so unbelieveably stuck on a girl's name that its crazy.  We found one that we really liked a lot (I'm going to say "X" just in case we end up going with this name later on)... and then of course over the next week or so, we heard of 3 different baby "X" born and saw that it was listed in every Top Ten Girl's Name for this year.  Grr. 

Needless to say, we are still in a deadlock over a baby girl's name, but we did manage to come up with a list of "requirements" for the name...

1. Middle name will most likely be "Ann" so it must work with this name
2. Last name is "Boles" so it must work with this also
3. Prefer relatively traditional (bonus if biblical)
4. Must not be super popular (as in top 20 names this year)
5. Must not be completely unique (not something like Pi or Monica2.0 or something ridiculous)
6. Open to different spellings, but notsomuch trendy spellings (like Monyka or Kevyn)
7. Prefer a name that is nickname-able

We are open to any ideas, suggestions, thoughts and words of wisdom.  :)

Until then... our quest continues.