Fred, is this the same Emmett I knew who fell through an uncovered manhole?

I remember a Russell who did that, but not Emmett. It was night, the road was closed for repairs, Russell decided to walk down it anyway.

Emmett had a beard and liked to claim he was a demon. Basically drank himself out of school. And I swear I referred to his fashion sense as "modern American wino" before I learned how much he drank.

Maybe with the Obama association, there will be a lot of "Hopes" born this year!

The Baby Name Voyager woman has a daughter born on or right after 9/11, and her middle name is Hope.

My other grandmother had a beautiful 19th century name, Lelia.

Love this name. And the George Sand novel.

I always wished I had a cool middle to default to...or any sort of cool nickname.

My middle name is Monica, which, after a childhood rife with classmates calling me "Harmonica," I'm still not reconciled to.

Relatedly, my mom told me a few months ago that I was named after a neighbor girl from when my mom was a kid. A neighbor girl who mom BEAT UP. Repeatedly.

I told Mom that if I had known that years earlier, therapy would have gone a lot more smoothly.

It's like the middle class white kid list.

Like I said, it's based on self-reporting from Babycenter.com users.

Dude, that's way too day-job-related. This is my fun internet!

It was more of a generalized "Will nobody think of the accents?" cry than a work order for you.

It's like indoor pants, but with speeling.

Speeling's the best.

I always wished I had a cool middle to default to...or any sort of cool nickname. My father's name for me? Buggy.

Can't you pick a cool middle name? You could keep it secret for a while and just know that you are secretly Esme.

My mind has been completely corrupted by fandom. I'm proofing a book with illustrations of the Wright Brothers, and one totally looks like Captain Jack and Ianto Jones in pre-WWI period dress rolling around in a meadow.

Plus, growing up in Hawaii, it got shortened to "Nani" which I also really love. Just a good name all around.

Okay, we really, really have to nail down a date for a Lilo & Stitch viewing. Seriously.

Matilda is still nowhere to be seen in the top 1000, but, as Hec notes, a ridiculous number of people have told us it was their #2 name choice--and it sounds like there's a mini-boom of Buffista-adjacent Matildas happening, too. Nevertheless, having been named way back in '06, ours is still out there on the bleeding edge.

Antonia is a lovely name. So are Eleanor, Caridad, Annabel (I love SusanW's spelling choice), and Lillian. I lobbied hard for either Eleanor or my maternal grandmother's name, Memorie, but I'm perfectly happy with Matilda.

Yay megan walker cuteheadness! I'm sorry I missed the final unveiling due to collapsing in a puddle next to the fussaboo.

I was supposed to be named Jane. Apparently, after I was born, my mother decided I looked more like an Antonia. Weird.

My father's name was Otto, and he forbade my mother from naming anyone of us after him. My only brother was born just after my mother's father died, so he got his name instead, Joseph.