Banana Fana Fo Fanna

One of the inevitable side effects of being pregnant is that you get into a lot of conversations about names.  That little pick-your-produce-of-the-week sized thing you’re toting around in there needs to be called something.

So all of a sudden your inner English major takes over, and things like alliteration and iambic pentameter and 3-4 letter words become really important (More so if you or your spouse actually IS an English major, like mine.  If so, proceed to Step 3: beating head against wall).

And if you have multiple existing children, or a particularly…er..’creative’ husband, or really like rhythmic rules (or all of the above, you know who you are <wink>), then things get exponentially complicated.

babynamewizard.com is the best source I’ve seen so far.  It can handle even the pickiest criteria, as well as suggest an alternative spelling even wackier than the one you were considering.  And where else can you get a chart of the most popular names in Iowa in 1961?  Or see a name graph that looks like something out of a geology textbook?

Popularity of names starting with A

I can play with this stuff for hours.

And then I have My Yahoo’s random baby name of the day.  And they do mean random.  A few gems:

Beorhthramm    Hud    Helma    Zerlinda    Abooksigun

Thieny    Awarnach    Now   Alberteen    Felabeorbt

(Bonus points:  Guess the intended genders!)

I realize many of these may be common names elsewhere;  I just want to illustrate the sheer thoroughness of this particular name generator.  Now if only they had a pronunciation guide.

As for our names, we’ve been discussing this for years, and after much negotiating and threats of temper tantrums, we are mostly settled.  The boy name still has some kinks to work out, but I’m a little in denial until the next ultrasound forces the issue.  That, and I LOVE (most of) our girl name.  However, I’m not sharing online as of yet, because if I do then I’ll start seeing it everywhere.  That’s how these things seem to happen, and I’m somewhat paranoid anyway.  That, and this was an excruciating process—I can’t do any take-backsies now.  Sorry.