The Weekly Slug: 25 weeks

I need some help, y'all. Those of you who read my blog are a pretty smart bunch. Clever, witty, far more entertaining than I'll ever be. So here goes.

We are stumped for a second name for our girl-to-be coming sometime in mid-August. We have gone through more names than you can imagine. It's getting ridiculous. So I'm charging you all with the challenge to help me think of a name. Generally speaking, your choices are broad. You can go for English/Irish/Scottish names or venture into names from any of the Romance languages (e.g., French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Latin). German names are up for consideration too. But we're not stopping there. If you think of a Russian name or Swahili name that you think is just groovy, send it along to me. Really the only parameter I can definitely throw out there is that we're not wanting to go for something too exotic or outside of our cultures, so Barack (or Baracka?) isn't really something we'd consider.

I know this would easier if you had all the other names this girl will get (first, mom's and dad's surnames), but my good bloggy friend Baby? Maybe. (Or Maybe Not.) strictly admonished me in comments a few weeks back to keep the first name hush-hush. So I'm on the down low with that 411. But I could be persuaded over email to reveal the first name just as long as you don't post it here in comments.

Below are listed names that are taboo due to unfortunate people in the past associated with them. My apologies if one of the names listed is your own. I promise you, it's not on the list because of you, but rather because it belongs to someone else who is yucky and who's only good quality is sharing a name with you.

Janine, Jeannie, Janet, Jenna, etc
Amy
Rebekah/Rebecca
Ruth
Michaela/Mikayla
Francis/Francisca

We also don't want names that are too overused, like:

Emma
Emily
Hannah
Anna
Sophia/Sofia

One other consideration. Generally speaking, there's a ton of names that start with "L" that we really like. Unfortunately none of them work due to the tongue-twister they create when combined with the first name. So no Lori, Lauren, Lana, Lucifer...hey, how did that one get in there?

I think that gives you enough ideas. Please send me your ideas. I don't care how many you send. I'm just so sick of googling "baby name meaning 'not a troublemaker' starting with B" and then bombarding my husband with, "Barbara? Barbie? Beatrice? Belinda? Belissima? Benita? Bernadette?..."

Thank you, thank you all. I appreciate you very much. I appreciate you helping me keep my sanity on this one.