I like the name Dorothea, mainly for my Middlemarch love.

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Rats. The baby name wizard won't work for me on the home computer. Have to check it at work. I like all my grand and great-grandmothers' names (at least the ones that I know; I don't know the names of the great-grands on my dad's side): Memorie, Angelica, Adele, Julia. The men's names weren't bad either: James (or Dimitri), Jack, Herman.

it looks like the "boy names must start with J" thing is ebbing

My mom has already issued an edict among her sprog that no potential grandsprog may be named with anything starting with a "J" sound, as our family already has Jack, Jack, Judy, Jacqueline, Gene, George and George, and when people get flustered at large family gatherings there's a lot of yelling of "Ge- Ja- Jo- Dammit, YOU! THERE! YOU!"

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The woman on my television keeps messing up the pronunciation of trattoria.

Is it that chick on the Food Network with the really big head and teeny body who is related to Dino DiLaurentis the movie producer?

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I had thought Olivia might be topping out in popularity, but I just really like it. I also like Sophia and Isobel but Olivia flows well with Owen.

I decided not to look into the popularity of any name we were considering. If it was already everywhere or had been, chances are, I'd already ruled it out, but I wasn't going to pass on a perfectly good name because of it.

I'm thinking of how well they go together when you're yelling, "OWEN CHRISTOPHER AND OLIVIA ROSE STOP THAT RIGHT NOW!"

Oh yeah, baby.

We were this close to naming Mallory Jack or Jackson, but a) thought it sounded weird with James and b) suddenly realized that every other male baby was getting named Jack.

I'm a goober. I'd have to name my Jack either John or Jackson. I couldn't just name him Jack.

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Sounds like it's time to get back to Greek and use "Tz-" then. "Tzan Kiusak" and "Antzellina Tzolie" are often in the mags here.

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Is it that chick on the Food Network with the really big head and teeny body who is related to Dino DiLaurentis the movie producer?

No. I like Giada. She is from Italy, so she pronounces things properly. This is the party starter people from the Food Network who are throwing an "Italian" themed party.

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My mom has already issued an edict among her sprog that no potential grandsprog may be named with anything starting with a "J" sound, as our family already has Jack, Jack, Judy, Jacqueline, Gene, George and George, and when people get flustered at large family gatherings there's a lot of yelling of "Ge- Ja- Jo- Dammit, YOU! THERE! YOU!"

Sounds like "Buffistina [or Buffistino] Monkeypants" is ideal for the Zmayhem sprog....

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No. I like Giada

Oops, sorry I insulted her. Though, I don't know if saying her head is big is an insult or a statement of fact. Probably an insult, if you consider intent, because she kind of freaks me out! Though her food does look good. Which is more than I can say about others, most notably Sandra Lee (shudder)

God, I watch TOO MUCH FOOD NETWORK! THough no Emeril and very little Rachael, so once you remove that programming, the rest doesn't amount to much.

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There are 20 grandchildren in dh's family--11 are girls. Four of the girls have "J" names, and another has a name that starts with a soft "G". M-i-l has a J name as well, and at least one of the girls uses that as her middle name. A sixth little one's middle name is another J name.

Oddly enough, none of the boys have J names, and there's only one first letter used more than once: M. More than one of the boys uses Anthony as a middle name, though.

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You know, I always thought there were about a million women named Linda the same age as my mother. And the Social Security site proved it-- it was the third most popular name in 1944.

My real name, on the other hand, was ranked 482 in 1973. Interestingly enough, this was about ten below Deena (hi!)

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