Michael and I are pretty particular when it comes to baby names.  To be seriously considered, a name must:

1) Not be the first name of someone else in the family (or sound like the first name of someone else in the family), to avoid confusion.

2) (For first names) Be a Bible name.  (We’ve stretched this a bit, using words from the Greek or Hebrew.)

3) Not be so common that it’s going to drive the kid nuts his whole life.  (And we failed on this, with Sophia.  But, hey, it wasn’t so popular until the year we picked it!)

4) Not be so totally bizarre that no one will ever be able to spell and/or pronounced it properly.  (For middle names, all bets are off, since the average acquaintance doesn’t have to spell/pronounce one’s middle name.)

5) Mean something significant.

That narrows the field considerably!  Especially for girls, as I have a family full of girls already, so a lot of the biblical girls’ names are taken!  Online name databases can be very helpful for bringing to our attention names we might not have otherwise thought of.  For instance, Dara and Eliana are both lovely names.  (I’d have to check to see if either is a Bible name, but both are Hebrew in origin.)

And if, unlike ours, your biggest problem is that you can’t narrow it down, the babynames.net can be a fun way to do just that.  You pick your top few names, and then invite friends and family members to vote for their favorites.  (Another interesting use would be naming a new book character.)

Check it out!