Generally speaking, my husband and I are very lucky.  We agree on lots of things so there’s no need for us to battle.  However, on those rare occasions where we do disagree, we both play to win.  And if we get to mock each other in the process, that’s a HUGE bonus.  Funny is fair game in our house.

From the minute we married, my husband has accused me of wanting to live in a cave.  That’s because I never remember to open the bedroom shades and my idea of a beautiful house looks straight out of nineteenth century Europe.  (Brown leather couches, thick drapes, and mahogany furniture…)  Because nineteenth century European decor is not practical for us, my husband won that battle.

Besides home decor, we also like to spar, with clubs in hand, over our children’s names.  We agree on numerous tenets when it comes to naming our children…  We both feel there’s a fine line between a trendy name and a name that’s going to get your ass kicked on the playground.  That allowed us to quickly eliminate names like Ocean, Stream, Magnolia, Pear, and Tree.  And we realized from the get-go that names like Cumin only sound good when you’re pregnant and craving spicy food.  Basically, we agree on a lot of name-like things, we just don’t agree on actual names.

When I was pregnant with my daughter, I became enthralled with one name.  Miriam.  I would rub my belly and whisper it.  “Miriam.”  My husband was initially lukewarm, but the more I talked about it, the more he realized he hated it.

Babies with great names sleep better.

The other names I loved were a little bit old-fashioned, Delia, Josephine, and Eleanor.  He hated these as well.  “Do we have to name our daughter after a song?”  (Actually, pregnancy hormones can do crazy things, and at one point I was only willing to entertain names if they also had accompanying songs.)

Because my husband’s grandmother was named Josephine, I rallied particularly hard for Josie.  Naturally, the more I championed it, the more he hated it.  Also, he claimed if we named her Josephine she would come out of the womb with a mop in her hand.  (My husband’s grandmother was infamous for her love of cleaning.)

Since I do play to win, I realized I was going to have to resort to reverse psychology.  I decided to bypass my usual old-fashioned names and focus entirely on the archaic.  I started regularly referring to our baby as Esmerelda Annunciata Desiderata Geraldine Scholastica Eulalia Desdemona Eugenia.  Finding horrible names became a favorite pastime of mine.  To the horror of my friends and family, I would post picture updates on Facebook of my burgeoning bump complete with the worst names I could think of.  I figured if I referred to her as Esmerelda Eugenia often enough, Miriam and Josephine would start sounding awesome by comparison.

As you can see, this is yet another reason to hate facebook.

The end result?  I showed up at the hospital with the baby falling out of me and we still had no name!  Then I clubbed my husband over the head in a fit of hormonal insanity, and named our daughter Rose.

Do you have any favorite baby names?  What are the best and worst names you’ve heard and/or considered?

I’m just relieved my crazy parents didn’t name me Geraldine Apple Eugenia.  Phew!  That was close!  And thanks to Daddy, my house doesn’t resemble a big brown cave either!

*I have no actual sources to back up any of these statements, but I believe them to be true.