What's in a name?

Our family of four is about 9-10 weeks away from becoming a family of five.  Ten weeks feels like an eternity when I think about days and hours and minutes but, it doesn't feel fast enough when I feel swollen ankles and severe heat exhaustion and know that I'm starting to waddle a bit.  I told my husband in one of my almost midnight complaint sessions a few weeks ago that this baby process is so slow.  I mean, we have smart phones and remote controls and live in a world where everything is immediate and we can stream movies on our computers.  Jokingly I told him that someone needs to figure out how to speed up this whole baby thing.  Because, 38-40 weeks is an insanely long time to wait for something.

And, I might start sleeping on the tile floor in my laundry room.  It's the coolest room, temperature wise, in the whole house.

How was that for some randomness?

Like I said, we've only got about 10 weeks and the family expands.  That expansion, "little twitchy" as I refer to him is going to need a name.

A name that as of right now, doesn't exist.

I know so many people who name their kid before he's born.  I'm cool with that.  Part of me wishes it could come that easily...that my husband and I could come to an agreement on something and have a few months or weeks to test it out to make sure it works.  We don't however function that way.  Names have been batted around our home and our extended families for months.  Everything I like, he despises.  Everything he likes, I think it comes from so far in left field that he's just trying to get my goat.

With the other two boys, we had a few "rules" if you will.  Rules that still exist for little twitchy.

1.  A first name that is easy to spell and pronounce.

2.  A first name that isn't immediately nick-nameable into a thousand different names.  Nick names are okay and great (for the first 6 months of his life, Ross called Elliott, Fred.  And the Chick, well, he's going to be Chickie until he's an old man, even though we don't really use it anymore.) but a little annoying, too.

3.  A first name that is unique enough that there won't be three of him in a school class but not so strange that people look at us like we are weirdos.

4.  A first name that is the name he goes by, not a middle name (We already screwed this up with Wyatt and don't need to do it again.  Ross and I are both middle namers and it's a pain in the butt a lot of the time.)

5.  A name that really feels like it fits the boy who will be stuck with it the rest of his life.

6.  A name that transitions well - good for a baby, a boy, and a man.

7.  A name that someone in any of our immediate and extended family (still living) doesn't already have.  (I love the name Luke, but we have two.  There are plenty of Ed's.  We have three cousin's named Max.)

It's not too complicated, right?  Right?  The rules I mean...they aren't too crazy.

For Elliott, we had a middle name chosen well in advance and a list of four or five first names that we liked and when it came right down to it, I picked Elliott. For Wyatt, we had a middle name (that became a first name) and a list of four names that we liked and Ross chose Wyatt.  Not until much later when my mom realized that both boys names ended in "tt" did we ever notice that we'd already done the pattern thing.

Ug!

Does that make us like the Duggars?

Now, "little twitchy" doesn't stand a chance.  

We could go with another "tt" like Garrett or Bennett or Emmitt, but that puts us over the top of cliche hill.  

We could go with some alliteration like Henry or Hayden or Hal.  

We could go with our roots and use Sven or Anders or Olaf.  

We could go trendy and use Aiden or Jacob or Noah.  

We could go off the beaten path with Grady or Clem or Ollie.  

We could go super traditional with Mike or David or Joel.

We could go presidential with Truman or Davis or Jefferson.

We could go super different like Stone or Prince or Blanket.

We could go with a hyphenated name like Jean-Paul or Jean-Luc or Walker-Texas Ranger.

We could go with a location like Boston or Baton Rouge or DC.

We could go with nature like River or Aspen or Flood.

We could go with a nickname for a name like Maverick or Goose or Ice-man.

We could go with a spin on a family name like Ever or Peter or Eccles.

We could go familial with Karl or Dick or Ross.

We could just name him "generic" because we couldn't come up with anything good.

At this point, the list has seen it's fair share of additions and subtractions with absolutely no agreement.  We came up with four names for two other boys, but we really don't seem to be able to come up with a single name for boy number three.

It blows my mind how hard it is this time around.  Like with the other boys, we're pretty sure we have a middle name selected, but besides not being able to come up with a first name, figuring out a first name that fits well with the middle name is proving to be overwhelming.

At this point, were open to suggestions.

Any thoughts?