I am great at naming pets, not so good at naming children.  We spent last night coming up with an "official" list of names that we like.  Despite me bringing it up constantly (or perhaps because I bring it up constantly), Rachel won't budge from her "there is no way in hell I am naming my child 'Zia' stance".  My fallback plan was going to be to wait until Rachel was heavily sedated from the epidural to try to convince her that Zia is a great name, but looks like she won't be getting an epidural.  It's not that she is a hippie who wants to "feel the entire  experience of childbirth Brah!", but her back surgery as a child means the epidural probably wouldn't even work.  So we're going all-natural.  That means we'll have to reach agreement on a name while we are both of sound mind, which really turns the difficulty of picking a name up to 11.
 
Thus, we are stuck reading baby name books and trying to find something that won't traumatize our poor kid for the rest of his or her life.  We made the mistake early of telling people some names we liked, which is always a bad because everyone has an opinion on potential names, and that opinion is always "that name is stupid."  My family is big on not crossing nationalities.  Since my side is not Italian, we're apparently not allowed to name our child any name that an Italian has ever had.  Her side is better at name criticism, but not so good at hiding the disgusted eye rolls when we say we want to name our kid after a muppet.  But I must say that the worst of the lot is my friends, who would make the meanest grade school kids ever.  It's actually a bit impressive how quickly they can come up with name-based insults.  From Smelly Kelly to Nater Nater Masterbater, they had a juvenile insult for every name we gave them.
 
The other problem is that a large percentage of the names we like are really popular these days.  And while we don't want the name to be as unique as mine, we also don't want our kid to be one of 7 Lucas' at their school.  We're also worried, like most parents I assume, that someone could come along and ruin a name after we pick it.  I mean, you have to feel bad for all the Adolph's born in 1888 or the Mylie's born before 1992... But since no one can predict who will ruin a name (or a mustache) in the future, maybe the best thing is to pick a common name.  So, if anyone has suggestions for a common, but not too common, name that can't be rhymed with any reproductive organs, snot, masturbation or phlegm, please let me know.  We are officially taking suggestions.