Let's Play the {Baby} Name Game!

"But wait!" You say, as I crowdsource for baby name possibilities, "There's a blog for that!"

Yes, yes there is. And I kept thinking, "I should email Kate and see if she has any ideas, because we're at a total standstill in the baby naming process right now."

And THEN she goes and has a real life and has to close consultations just when I need her the most!!! This is what I get for procrastinating, because I knew I was going to have a write a really long, ridiculously specific email and... I didn't want to.

So instead, you get a really long, ridiculously specific blog post and YOU get to help us come up with baby name possibilities for Andrew to shoot down!

Aren't you excited???



John Paul was an easy pick for our firstborn, both because we loved JPII and because it's a family name and even before Andrew became Catholic, he wanted to name his firstborn son John Paul. Done and done!

Cecilia was trickier - when we were thinking of possible girl names for John Paul, we loved Sophie and Madeleine but rejected them as possibilities after he was born because they ended up WAY too popular for our taste. Cecilia Marie was our choice at first, but then they named their baby that on The Office, and we had to be different. So we went with Cecilia (because we're both musicians) and Therese (because she's my confirmation saint and is awesome).

It took us FOREVER to decide on names for the twins. Andrew wouldn't let me announce that they had been born until we picked names, so that helped make things a little easier!

Elizabeth Anna is the elder of the two, and is named for St. Elizabeth (Mary's cousin, mother of St. John the Baptist) and St. Anne (Mary's mom, but Anna flows better with our last name than Anne). Mary Claire is (obviously) named for the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Clare, although we used "Claire" as the spelling because I just like how it looks better in Mary Claire's name.

We found out we were expecting twins on the Feast of Sts. Cosmos and Damian, and since then I really wanted to use the name Damian, also because St. Damien of Molokai is awesome. But the kids were dead set on Peter if we had a boy (because of The Seven Silly Eaters and Narnia and the Bible) and eventually they referred to him as Peter so often that that just... became his name. And then we found out that St. Peter Damian is not only already a saint in his own right, but is a pretty awesome patron. 

SO:

Boys: 

John Paul

Peter Damian

Girls: 

Cecilia Therese

Elizabeth Anna

Mary Claire

Baby #6: Gender unknown.

As you can probably tell, we lean towards Catholic names, but not hipster-Catholic names. Andrew loves old Church names, but I can't name a kid Scholastica or Athanasius (people do it! I know they do! But... I just can't.). I feel like for a boy it would be appropriate to continue in our trend of Apostle names, although two names doesn't exactly make a trend so I'm not tied to that. We have an easier time agreeing on potential boy names than girl names, though... Our list of vetoed girls' names is LONG. I'm not sure that we *have* a list of vetoed boy names, aside from me not being willing to go for Irenaeus, Athanasius, Polycarp, etc. Thomas & James have been strong contenders in the past but I'm not sure how either of us feel about those right now... And I'm pretty sure we'd try to work Benedict in somewhere because we both love BXVI a lot.

As for vetoed girl names? For one reason or another (already used/claimed by immediate family, too popular, not to the taste of one of us), these are off the table:

Agatha

Agnes

Amelia

Anastasia

Catherine (and thus Kateri, Katherine, etc.)

Charlotte

Lucy

Madeleine

Sophie

It would be *nice* (but not a must-have) to have a feast day that falls in May, June, August, or September, just because those tend to be drier months around here with no family feast days or birthdays (as opposed to November which is... CRAZY.). And obviously we have two kids who go by double names (John Paul and Mary Claire), so those are possibilities. We don't really do nicknames either, so no "Ignatius and call him Nate" or anything like that - too Catholic hipster for us ;)

What do you think? Can YOU come up with the perfect name that Andrew won't totally shoot down? Help!!!

Let the record state that Andrew says I'm far pickier than he is when it comes to names. He's probably right. BUT it's my blog.