I'm not sure whether to take this post seriously or not. If it is serious...eek.

Your daughter is much more likely to get ridiculed in school if you pick an unpronounceable name. Also, you want a name that teachers can readily pronounce so your daughter doesn't have to go through the "no, it's [ ]" every time someone tries to pronounce her name in school.

This doesn't mean you have to be totally boring with the kid's name, and even giving her an out-there middle name would probably still work out well. But for a first name, stick with something that most people can pronounce fairly well, and something that other kids won't tease her mercilessly about. I hate to say it, but I would have changed my name legally a long time ago if my mother had named me "Orva" or "Gobnat".

my wishlist:

XY: Gavin, Logan, Tyler
XX: Belle, Isabella, Kaylee

I see you haven't hit the books yet where they suggest such names as "Elantra" and "Espn," the first after a model of car, the second after the sports channel.

"Ebba" is actually a very nice Swedish name. Years I ago in Stockholm I met the most adorable children named Ebba and Clara. Lovely to look at, sweetly dispositioned, and very funnily confused that I didn't understand their Swedish. So the name "Ebba" seems delightful to me.

We've got a five-week-old so we've recently been through the whole naming thing. My suggestions amount to: Keep it to yourself until the baby makes its big entrance. Somebody's bound to spoil it.

Oh yeah, do make sure to check the lists of the most popular names. You'd be surprised how often names that seem rare are really very common and have come to you by an unnoticed whiff of popular zeitgeist and not from your years of reading obscure lit.

Hahahaha!

Gobnat.

Of course I'm not serious, Slashchick!! :D

Yes, in all seriousness, keeping it to oneself seems the best strategy. Otherwise people will go OH NO! I *HATED* A GIRL NAMED x IN COLLEGE! YOU CAN'T!!

I'd suggest not making a final decision until you meet the baby and get to know them a little.

We had a shortlist of names for our son. We were 99.9% sure we knew what we were going to call him. Then 4 days after he was born we finally settled on a name that hadn't been considered by either of us before the birth.

6 months later, I can't imagine him being called anything else.

Oh, and if you want crazy names look to ikea furniture. HULINGEN, GRUNDTAL, KROBY, ORGEL...

I kinda like Notta Fake ;)

what about
arwen, galadriel or luthien

My exhusband and his wife are pregnant. He keeps telling me the proposed names of the work-in-progress. Quite frankly, its a little disconcerting thinking that they might name the little bugger something that very closely resembles my surname. While we're still very close, that's a little *much*, if you get my drift.

ooooo, Sue, I heart those...very Lord of the Rings.

I'm a big 'old fashioned' name fan. You know, those names that only passed on grandparents and silver screen movie stars had. Vivian, Agatha, Ruby, Lauren, Marlene, etc. My son hates 'Thaddeus' right now, but will love it someday when he isn't surrounded by people of the same name, but it doesn't sound too 'flower child' either (or trendy).

I can't wait to hear what you guys came up with, though! You're going to set the stage for the rest to come!

Lucky you, baby names are my specialty. Neither my sister, brother or any friend used any of my suggestions, but it seems you would be open to some of them.

There are two lines that I prefer: steps of meiosis (leptotene, zygotene, pachytene and diplotene) or figures of speech (anacoluthon, anaphora, chiasmus, climax, epanalepsis, hendiadys, paraprosdokian).

Cool, huh? Your kid would be remembered for years.

The wikipedia is a great source of inspiration.

Andre, you forgot "Epizeuxis", my personal favorite. Maybe even "Hapax Legomenon".

Notta -- awesome!

And here's a thing: I really like my own name, Caterina, but for some reason it's OK to name a baby after the father, but girls you don't do that with, at least not very often. Seems oddly egotistical. Caterina Jr.?

Julie McCoy Fake.

I second what Paul up above said. We had a few names picked before we headed into the hospital, but we decided after meeting her that she was/is definitely Josephine. It wasn't on our list going in, but it was just perfect- we see a lot of my Grandma Fita (Josephine) in her.

AND I also wanted to name her Concha or Conchita, because I really like having such a unique name & wanted to pass that on- especially since I took Ann's last name. It's one of those rules we just can't break I guess.

We considered (but ultimately passed on) 'Tallulah' and 'Anwyn', two unusual names that I liked. I'll also third the suggestion not to finalize anything now; it felt right to decide afterwards.

In Mexico it's traditional to name firstborn sons after their dads and firstborn daughters after their mother's or grandmothers... so if you really wanted to name your daughter Caterina claim Mexican tradition. We use different middle names to avoid the Jr thing. And as someone with both a son and a dad with the same first name, I can tell you the tradition is comforting, my American friends' raised eyebrows notwithstanding.

For our #2 we went with Gabriel (spanish pronunciation) as a small tribute to Marquez... using author names seems to be a mini trend at least amongst our friends here in Brooklyn. We know a little girl named Tennyson, a newborn girl named Maria Rainer, and a very serious young boy named Darwin.

The thing about naming your unborn kids is that when you hit the right one you'll just know it's right, it's a bit like falling in love--ya know when ya know.

I Can't Believe It's Not Butterfield.

(Sorry!)

i like the whole Seussian mythology... so how about:
Horton
Sneetches
Zelf
Lorax
Grinch

or you could use a few of those in combination:
Horton Zelf Butterfield
Grinch "Sneetches" Fake

anyway, congrats & best of luck ;)

- dave mcclure
(+ dante leonardo mcclure + layla moon mcclure)

How about Johnny? Yeah, even for a girl...

athena

I knew a wonderful woman called Asta, it's an icelandic name. Her daughter is called Sunna. I also like Aina,which is from Majorca, and sounds like the finnish Aino (Alvar Aalto's wife was called like that). Then there's Valentina, like valentina Tereshkova the first woman in space.

If you're going with something unusual it is not a bad idea to tell people- at least you'll know if it means something offensive in another language. My flemish-belgian co-worker almost called her daughter Suus, which when said in French means suck in a very sexually explicit way.

I think Gobnat Orva Butterfield Fake is nice. I wanted to name my son Julian "Strad" but was shot down by the family. But they repented by letting me name my daughter Darrow. And once I had a Darrow, it was no problem naming the next one Beckett. So I am clearly partial to last names as first names. Would you consider Hornik Butterfield-Fake :)

lucy was born a week after her due date in early night under a full moon -- and she arrived with a bright look of determination and self-assuredness so we figured that she waited til there was a full moon and we named her lucinda after the light. i wanted her to have a name with a nickname so she'd have name-flexibility as she grows up. so far she's got lucy and lucinda and her friend leila calls her goosey lucylu.

Just to mix things up a bit, how about a Southern name? Shelby, Abrienne, Savannah or Caroline? Imagine it: Savannah Butterfield. Oh, Tara!

My husband wanted to call our daughter Media - we figured it would date - as media usually does...

If you're looking for different names - i will boldly admit here that I had a fleeting but very intense passion for Anne McCaffey books in my early teens and she has some real gems for names in there. definitely different.

my name is savannah butterfield!!!

Congratulations. It's an excellent name and children are excellent little things. Wohoo.

Genuine Fake Butterfield.

The Internet Anagram server recommends: Baked Fleet Fruit Butterfield Fake.

I say: congratulations!

Hands down best name for a girl is:
Conception. It means "understanding". Grin.

If you want uniqueness, without being silly, then try angel names that haven't been used much, like Sofiel ("fosters a love of nature in human hearts"). They are timeless rather than trendy. Or, Cathetel, "Angel of the Garden".

My oldest daughter's name is Anwyn (which if you don't know is pronounced Ahn win, not Ann-win.) It suits her as she is a very fair and beautiful (except perhaps when she is yelling at her sister.)

Whenever anyone asks her name there are two universal experiences. 1., she is asked to repeat it and then spell it--I guess it just has a foreign enough sound to the ear that most folks don't grasp the name right away. Then 2., the person repeats it, and then everyone says some form of, "Oh, that's such a beautiful name." It usually seems very sincere. I have liked it for her because it is a name that goes well from birth through maturing.

My other daughter's name is Chloe, which I also love. She's 10 so she is a little ahead of the Chloe boom, but I wish it had not become quite so popular.

Oddly, before Brangelina's expanding family took headlines, I had already pegged my next son as Pax and my next daughter as Shiloh. I thik Brangelina must be stalking me. Alas, I had no more kids, but I like the names. I am also quite fond of Fulton and Esme.

Silly names doom the child to a life of abuse or a Paris-Hilton complex. They usually wind up murdering their parents, which in this situation, would be fully justified.