Adventures in Naming

Art and I have been in baby name negotiations since we found out our baby's gender 4 weeks ago. I started out by making a "long list" of names and gave it to Art to cross out and add too. 2 weeks of nagging later, he looked at the list for 5 minutes and gave it back to me with EVERYTHING crossed out except Mia, Isabella, and Liana. All middle name options were crossed out.

I really only put Mia and Isabella on the list because I know he likes those names a lot, but I am opposed to any first name that is in the top 20 popular names. Mia is number 10 and Isabella is number 1. I told Art I would move Isabelle (instead of Isabella) to the middle name list, and consider Mia and Liana as first names. I made a middle name "long list." Art narrowed it down to 4.

I printed a list of all the name combinations, which was 8 in total. From there we narrowed it down to 6 names, but then both of us arrived at the conclusion that we're not sure if Mia or Liana are the right first name. So back to the books I went. After reading another 15,000 names or so, I made another "long list" of which Art only liked 2, which were the ones I wasn't really crazy about, but put them on the list anyway.

I'm not really sure what to do from here. I wish there were a couple names I was really crazy about so I could talk Art into them, but I am unsure at this point and relying on Art's opinion which differs greatly from mine. At this rate, I'm pretty sure we won't have a name picked out before the baby is born in 4 months. The obstacle of naming is exactly why Art and I could NEVER have a "surprise." There is no way we could come up with a boy name AND a girl name in time.

I asked Keira what she thinks Sister's name should be and she said her name is "Baby." I said, "I thought you are Baby." She said, "No, I'm Keira. Sister can be 'Baby' now." I thought that was cute. She is passing down the title to her sister, which is a big deal for her. And the adventures in naming continue... which is a big deal for me!