Names

My wife has this thing about communication. For me, communication can be in the form of grunts, nods, or other gestures. For her, it has to be verbal. And I don’t just mean a sentence or two. It has to be a countless repetition of long strings of coherent words put together to form meaningful thoughts. I understand that she is asking a lot from me, but I try my best to comply with her needs at least once or twice a week. Well, last night was one of those times and the topic of conversation quickly turned toward baby names.

With the arrival of our next child now only 20 weeks away, we are starting to feel the need to pinpoint a name. Since we still don’t know the gender, we brainstormed both girl and boy names. “How about Ulysses?” I said to get things rolling.

“Be serious,” she replied.

“My back itches,” I said. “Maybe if you scratch it, I will think better.”

“Maybe if you think better, I’ll scratch it,” she replied.

“OK, what about Jefferson?” I said. No scratch so I tried again. “Jeremiah?” Ahh, one finger right in that hard to reach spot in the middle. That was nice, but which finger was it?

“What about family names?” she asked.

“We could name him after your one of your Grandpas,” I suggested.

“Which one, Marvin or Ralph?” Boy does my back itch now. “Let me help,” she suggested as she pulled the name book off the shelf. “I’ll read you a list of names and you say yes or no.” She turned to the page entitled “Boy Names That Give You a Leg Up in Life” and began to read. “Barrett?”

“No.”

“Blake?”

“No.”

“David?”

“Maybe.”

“Gus?”

“No.”

“Kyle?”

“No.”

“Max?”

I paused to consider. It’s got a nice ring to it. “You said family names earlier, right? Well what about family initials?” My wife looked semi-intrigued so I continued. “My dad and brother are both MGH, so we could continue that trend,” I suggested before thinking for a minute. “I’ve got it!” I finally shouted. “Maximillian Gus!”

It started as a chuckle, but quickly turned into one of those I’m-too-tired-for-your-silliness giggles. For some reason this name really struck a funny bone in my wife, because she kept giggling and giggling. I’m still not quite sure what she thinks of the name. She just laughs every time I say it. Help me out here, guys. Does that mean she likes it or not?

On to girl names. We quickly ruled out nearly every name on the “Old Fashioned Names that Are Cute Again” list. For some reason Buella and Mabel just didn’t strike our fancy. “What about ‘Girly-Girl Names?'” my wife asked as she thumbed through the book.

“What’s on there?” I asked.

“Bubbles?”

“No.”

“Cinnamon?”

“No.”

“Fluffy?”

“Nope.” Now she owes me a back scratch for every name on her list.

“What about Princess?”

“Oh, that would be perfect,” I replied. “How does Princess Love sound?” This time I wouldn’t call it giggles. This time it was hysterical laughter. “That settles it then,” I said. “If it’s a boy, we’ll call him Maximillian Gus and if it’s a girl she’ll be Princess Love.”

Just promise me one thing. If you are going to be having a baby before November, don’t go stealing our names.