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.

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.

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....

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.

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.

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!)

I adore Giada's food, but hate something about her -- it's not exactly her voice, so much as a grating kind of simper she has. She is the one for whom mute + closed captions were made. Still, the food is fabulous, the cooking skills are legit (RACHAEL GODDAMN RAY I'M LOOKING AT YOU) and the pronunciation is flawless. When I have the sound on.

RACHAEL GODDAMN RAY I'M LOOKING AT YOU

Heh, for real. I just read an interview where she downright glories in the fact that she has no knife skills. UGH!

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

Except that when I'm flustered, my lisp resurfaces, so in discussing theoretical names we've also been attempting to steer away from anything with a lot of s's. Which, I think, narrows our possible choices down to Dylan, Frank, Tom and Bob.

Boy naming in Western culture is kind of odd and limited -- IIRC, the selection for boys has always been a bit scanter than for girls, and now so many names have migrated over to the girls' side. I tried recently sitting down and making a list of all my favorite male authors, just to see if there was one I'd want to name a theoretical child after, and I swear half of them were either Paul or David. Throw in a handful of Johns and Jameses and some Williams and you've got practically the entire male side of the Western canon. It's remarkably un-varied.

Last count I had about 30 cousins on my mother's side of the family. Ah, Catholics. I could probably name about half of them. A trend that used to be popular in Ireland was naming kids after their parents, so my mum and her mum are Catherine, and her dad and one of her brothers are both Thomas.