Name game: continued

Yesterday Mr. Ibis and I took his mom out and he said he wanted to run a baby name by her and he was going to catch her honest reaction even if she tried to hide it: Julius. This, you recall, was his dad's middle name; his parents were divorced for years before he died. My mother-in-law did not attempt to sugar coat her opinion: she immediately exclaimed "Don't you dare!" followed by ick and echh. She said his father hated that name, and so did she, and that's why they didn't give it to any of their sons. It came from Mr. I's grandfather, who she said was a "horrible old man." And she said if we do choose that name, she'll never use it - she'll think of a nickname. Though she didn't like JJ either. So we had the prospect of a child named Julius who is never called Julius by neither his dad nor his grandma, and it wasn't my first choice either.

I figured that was the end of that and we were back to Miles... but no. Apparently Mr. I chatted with one of our friends from back East on Facebook Friday night and she said Miles is too trendy. Now, we've had at least two dozen other people say they like the name, but this one friend says it's trendy and she already knows three Mileses, and Mr. I is off the name. Even though we don't live there anymore, we live in Nebraska where I'm pretty sure there aren't a lot of Mileses, the friend isn't even like our best friend or anything, and I wasn't aware that we needed to have a name that NO ONE else has. SIGH.

Now we're going through the baby name book again. I'm not exactly sure why I even mind going over names again... before our big ultrasound I thought it might be fun to go through them again just to be sure. But now that we've tried out Miles and called him that for a couple of weeks, I'm annoyed to make him be nameless again and start all over. I know we have plenty of time but I was kind of enjoying being able to call him something besides "the baby." I've taken to calling him "Anonymous" now.

Other options currently on the table, if you want to weigh in, are Marcus (we like) and Casey (a family name on my side), and Miles is still in it (but perhaps slightly tarnished).