I thought I would attach that caveat, because otherwise this post is going to look a little suspicious.
Ed and I have been talking about baby names recently. While I don't hear the 'pata of any kind of feet (little or letter or otherwise) just yet, we're soon to be neighbours to a set of newborn twins, newborn twins with some *brilliant* potential names. Also, I have been reading a lot of Dooce, who has the most excellent mom stories ever, and had a great deal of fun coming up with her daughter Lyta's most excellent name (I really liked her suggestion during the delivery that they call the baby Epidural Armstrong). Since I've been dying of a lung infection, to hel myself convalesce I've been thinking about what Ed and U might name out baby (should I live that long).
We, you see, have a unique problem. Well, two. Problem #1, by far the most dire, is that my husband's last name is Schmutz. Yeah. Schmutz. Any babies we have are alsready doomed to at least part of a surname involving that single-syllable explosion of a word. It is actually used as a mild insult in some European countries. I am not kidding.
The second problem is that Ed has a slightly difficult time naming things. He agonizes over the startup screen in video games when he needs to name his character; ditto for D&D characters. We still haven't completely settled on the name of our large orange cat, whome we've had for over a year (I call him George, and Ed calls him Ghandi. The cat doesn't seem to mind, as long as he still gets treats).
Here, for you to ponder over, are a few of the more spectacular baby names I have come up with for one of our (very, very) future offspring:
My all time favourite name for a girl: Tallulah. Best. Name. Ever. You could call the baby Lulu when she was very small, and Tulip is also a great nickname. It also happens that Lala means 'tulip' in slavic, another fabulous extension.
My favourite name for a boy: Will. I really, really like the simplicity and strength of it, but I know that at some point someone would start calling the kid Bill and I would get homicidal.
Name we may actually use for a girl: Eleanor Erika. I like to idea of naming a baby girl after a warrior queen, however froofy (Eleanor of Acquitaine), and the diminutive El or Ella is a favourite of mine. Erika is Ed's older sister's name, which I really like, and I think the two balance each other.
ditto for a boy: Samuel John. Can't go wring with John, and Ed's family is full of them. Samuel is also the anglicized version of my maternal grandfather's first name (Vsevalod). Having a baby called Sam is just plain neat. Kind of like a baby called Larry or Percival. Heh.
Other girl's names I really like: Margarita/Daisy, Annika, Marika, Perdita, Phillipa, Nicola, Katinka, Penelope, Sally, and Susan/Suzanne.
Boys names I am becoming attached to: Calvin (which does seem like asking for trouble though), Daniel, Galen (for the 2nd C doctor), Gilbert, Simon, Sebastian, Westley, or Winston.
Heh. Winston Schmutz. Maybe I shouldn't be allowed to have kids. =)