We will not know the sex officially for a while so this is not a declaration. However I find it hilarious that my husband is campaigning to name the baby, if it is a girl, Jenny.

My foreign born husband walks around quoting Forrest Gump and how we can start naming everything in our house the Jenny 1, the Jenny 2 and life will be amazing if we had a Jenny.

My name is Victoria. I grew up generally with a half a dozen Jennifer’s my age. While I liked Forrest Gump and appreciate the quotes, there is no way my baby will be named after a movie.

I was named after the queen of England, even though my father’s family is all Irish. I had quite a few ‘why would your parents name you that?’ pity questions growing up.

So I know names are important. I struggle with character names. Ariel in the Zoastra Affair, my pink haired alien, went through a dozen names until I looked into the sky and said “I need a name that goes with the sky.” Aerial reminded me immediately of Ariel.

And my baby will not be a pink haired alien where I understand her quirks as I find a name. This baby will come with a blank slate. I don’t know the personality yet. He/she will be a little of me and a little of my husband and her own soul all mixed up.

I have no idea how to pick a name for this baby. None at all. This is harder than any character in a book. Someone real is going to have this label of a name for a lifetime. It’s daunting. How in the world do I pick? How did you pick your children’s names? Did you put names in a bowl and fish one out? (Which sounds so arbitrary and I won’t be doing that.)