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.

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.

Always popular for boys in the US, but quite rare for girls. I dunno why.

I know a woman named Rose (which I really like). Her mother is named Rose. Her grandmother is named Rose. When I met the mother, she said to call her "Ro Ro" and I had to bite my tongue off to keep from saying either, "Oh, I can't do that," or "Please tell me I don't have to call the grandmother Ro Ro Ro." Now, whenever I see any of them, I get earwormed with Row Row Row Your Boat.

Question: leftover minestrone soup made on Monday that has been properly refrigerated is still good for lunch today, right?

My grandmothers were Grace and Frances. My great aunt was Marguerite, but she went by Day. (Marguerite=Daisy=Day, which is really kind of cool.)