Here is the game we are playing:

We are going to pretend that we are naming a baby and that the name MUST start with a certain letter, and so we will need one name starting with that letter for a boy and one name starting with that letter for a girl, or else one name that would work for either, EVEN IF we don’t like any of the names that start with that letter enough to Actually In Real Life choose them. It is just a game where we place artificial restrictions on reality in order to create the kind of tension that makes games fun—like when you have to choose what foods you’d eat if you could only eat three foods for the rest of your life: the fun is in thinking it over AS IF it were a real forced decision, while KNOWING it is not. There is a baby! It MUST be given a name with a particular letter! That is the game.

After that basic concept, we can decide our own sub-rules, based on what makes the game fun and not stressful. Some examples:

• I’m not planning to play that the name has to fit with the names of my other children or with the surname, though this would be an option for anyone who would LIKE to play it that way; I think I will have more fun if I pretend it is a stand-alone baby and that the surname is not an issue, though I may change my mind as we go. (And if I narrow it down to a few options and can’t decide, I might use siblings/surname as a tie-breaker.)

• It is also fine to narrow it down to a few finalists without getting to The One Name.

• The boy name and girl name don’t have to work TOGETHER: we are only naming ONE baby, so you’d only use one or the other. But you MAY play that the names have to work together, if that’s more fun.

• It is fine to wave aside issues such as a friend who already used that name, a famous person with the name, etc., if that makes it more fun and less stressful to choose. This is just pretend, so you can pretend that those things aren’t issues if you want to. (Or you can let the issues stand as they are in real life, if THAT is more fun.)

• We can also all make our own decisions about whether the names have to be ones we think we’d ACTUALLY USE in that hypothetical scenario, or just our FAVORITE names starting with that letter, regardless of whether we think the names are practical; I am not sure which way I will play it, and I likely won’t be consistent.

• If you already have a child with a name starting with the letter we’re working on, you get to pick again from all the names that remain; you don’t have to choose your child’s name as your favorite just because it WAS your favorite: this is a FRESH baby, and you wouldn’t give it the same name as your existing child. (If you would normally prefer not to repeat an initial within a sibling group, you can just pretend that’s NOT a preference for the sake of the game.)

• You can do as much or as little explanation as you like in your comment: you can just list the names you chose, or you can explain your process/preferences/reasoning/runners-up, or whatever is most fun.

Today’s letter is M. I have FOUR favorite M girl names already: Margaret, Meredith, Millicent, and Minerva. I would have a terribly hard time choosing among them, I love them all so much. In fact, I am going with the “whatever is fun and not stressful” rule, and I am not going to narrow it down further with this one.

For boys, I don’t have any favorite M names, but I like Malachi, Malcolm, Merritt/Merit, Miles, Miller, Milo, Murphy. We had Milo in our top three finalist names for Henry, but I didn’t regret not using it, which I think has knocked it down a peg for me. Miller and Murphy are style outliers for us, if I’m playing the game as if that matters. I like the idea of Merritt/Merit, especially since it’s less common to use virtue names for boys, but I don’t know how I want to spell it. None of these are standing out as particular favorites. I guess if I’m choosing just for fun, I choose Miller and I choose not to care that it’s an outlier and a beer.

Now you! If you want to! Only if it’s fun and not stressful! Feel free to adjust the game-play to be fun and not stressful!

Here is the game we are playing:

We are going to pretend that we are naming a baby and that the name MUST start with a certain letter, and so we will need one name starting with that letter for a boy and one name starting with that letter for a girl, or else one name that would work for either, EVEN IF we don’t like any of the names that start with that letter enough to Actually In Real Life choose them. It is just a game where we place artificial restrictions on reality in order to create the kind of tension that makes games fun—like when you have to choose what foods you’d eat if you could only eat three foods for the rest of your life: the fun is in thinking it over AS IF it were a real forced decision, while KNOWING it is not. There is a baby! It MUST be given a name with a particular letter! That is the game.

After that basic concept, we can decide our own sub-rules, based on what makes the game fun and not stressful. Some examples:

• I’m not planning to play that the name has to fit with the names of my other children or with the surname, though this would be an option for anyone who would LIKE to play it that way; I think I will have more fun if I pretend it is a stand-alone baby and that the surname is not an issue, though I may change my mind as we go. (And if I narrow it down to a few options and can’t decide, I might use siblings/surname as a tie-breaker.)

• It is also fine to narrow it down to a few finalists without getting to The One Name.

• The boy name and girl name don’t have to work TOGETHER: we are only naming ONE baby, so you’d only use one or the other. But you MAY play that the names have to work together, if that’s more fun.

• It is fine to wave aside issues such as a friend who already used that name, a famous person with the name, etc., if that makes it more fun and less stressful to choose. This is just pretend, so you can pretend that those things aren’t issues if you want to. (Or you can let the issues stand as they are in real life, if THAT is more fun.)

• We can also all make our own decisions about whether the names have to be ones we think we’d ACTUALLY USE in that hypothetical scenario, or just our FAVORITE names starting with that letter, regardless of whether we think the names are practical; I am not sure which way I will play it, and I likely won’t be consistent.

• If you already have a child with a name starting with the letter we’re working on, you get to pick again from all the names that remain; you don’t have to choose your child’s name as your favorite just because it WAS your favorite: this is a FRESH baby, and you wouldn’t give it the same name as your existing child. (If you would normally prefer not to repeat an initial within a sibling group, you can just pretend that’s NOT a preference for the sake of the game.)

• You can do as much or as little explanation as you like in your comment: you can just list the names you chose, or you can explain your process/preferences/reasoning/runners-up, or whatever is most fun.

Today’s letter is N. I like the name Nadia, but I have a bad association with it that takes it out of the running for me. I like Noelle. I like Naomi. I like Nell, but would want to use it as a nickname instead of as a given name. Maybe Nora? I think I’d choose Nora.

For a boy, I’d thought it would be easy: Nicholas. I had a favorite cat named Nicholas when I was a child, and I had a very positive reaction to the name when I encountered it awhile back on a new baby: I thought “NICHOLAS! I’d forgotten the name Nicholas!” But I’m not enthusiastic about the nicknames Nick/Cole, so I also considered Nolan. I think in the end I’d choose Nicholas. I went so far as to ask Paul which of the two names he preferred, and he picked Nicholas.

Now you! If you want to! Only if it’s fun and not stressful! Feel free to adjust the game-play to be fun and not stressful!

Here is the game we are playing:

We are going to pretend that we are naming a baby and that the name MUST start with a certain letter, and so we will need one name starting with that letter for a boy and one name starting with that letter for a girl, or else one name that would work for either, EVEN IF we don’t like any of the names that start with that letter enough to Actually In Real Life choose them. It is just a game where we place artificial restrictions on reality in order to create the kind of tension that makes games fun—like when you have to choose what foods you’d eat if you could only eat three foods for the rest of your life: the fun is in thinking it over AS IF it were a real forced decision, while KNOWING it is not. There is a baby! It MUST be given a name with a particular letter! That is the game.

After that basic concept, we can decide our own sub-rules, based on what makes the game fun and not stressful. Some examples:

• I’m not planning to play that the name has to fit with the names of my other children or with the surname, though this would be an option for anyone who would LIKE to play it that way; I think I will have more fun if I pretend it is a stand-alone baby and that the surname is not an issue, though I may change my mind as we go. (And if I narrow it down to a few options and can’t decide, I might use siblings/surname as a tie-breaker.)

• It is also fine to narrow it down to a few finalists without getting to The One Name.

• The boy name and girl name don’t have to work TOGETHER: we are only naming ONE baby, so you’d only use one or the other. But you MAY play that the names have to work together, if that’s more fun.

• It is fine to wave aside issues such as a friend who already used that name, a famous person with the name, etc., if that makes it more fun and less stressful to choose. This is just pretend, so you can pretend that those things aren’t issues if you want to. (Or you can let the issues stand as they are in real life, if THAT is more fun.)

• We can also all make our own decisions about whether the names have to be ones we think we’d ACTUALLY USE in that hypothetical scenario, or just our FAVORITE names starting with that letter, regardless of whether we think the names are practical; I am not sure which way I will play it, and I likely won’t be consistent.

• If you already have a child with a name starting with the letter we’re working on, you get to pick again from all the names that remain; you don’t have to choose your child’s name as your favorite just because it WAS your favorite: this is a FRESH baby, and you wouldn’t give it the same name as your existing child. (If you would normally prefer not to repeat an initial within a sibling group, you can just pretend that’s NOT a preference for the sake of the game.)

• You can do as much or as little explanation as you like in your comment: you can just list the names you chose, or you can explain your process/preferences/reasoning/runners-up, or whatever is most fun.

Today’s letter is O. For a girl, I love Ottilie, but it’s outside my Hassle Willingness Range. I went to school with an Orianna (the -anna part was pronounced like -onna) so that seem familiar and usable, but I associate it strongly with that one person. I would like to think I might choose Olympia or Octavia, but I don’t think I would. I choose Olive.

For a boy, I would have predicted I’d choose Oliver, since that was high up on our list when I was expecting Henry, and the only thing that stopped us was that we had a cat named Oliver at the time. But I think actually I would choose Owen.

Now you! If you want to! Only if it’s fun and not stressful! Feel free to adjust the game-play to be fun and not stressful!

Here is the game we are playing:

We are going to pretend that we are naming a baby and that the name MUST start with a certain letter, and so we will need one name starting with that letter for a boy and one name starting with that letter for a girl, or else one name that would work for either, EVEN IF we don’t like any of the names that start with that letter enough to Actually In Real Life choose them. It is just a game where we place artificial restrictions on reality in order to create the kind of tension that makes games fun—like when you have to choose what foods you’d eat if you could only eat three foods for the rest of your life: the fun is in thinking it over AS IF it were a real forced decision, while KNOWING it is not. There is a baby! It MUST be given a name with a particular letter! That is the game.

After that basic concept, we can decide our own sub-rules, based on what makes the game fun and not stressful. Some examples:

• I’m not planning to play that the name has to fit with the names of my other children or with the surname, though this would be an option for anyone who would LIKE to play it that way; I think I will have more fun if I pretend it is a stand-alone baby and that the surname is not an issue, though I may change my mind as we go. (And if I narrow it down to a few options and can’t decide, I might use siblings/surname as a tie-breaker.)

• It is also fine to narrow it down to a few finalists without getting to The One Name.

• It is fine to wave aside issues such as a friend who already used that name, a famous person with the name, etc., if that makes it more fun and less stressful to choose. This is just pretend, so you can pretend that those things aren’t issues if you want to. (Or you can let the issues stand as they are in real life, if THAT is more fun.)

• We can also all make our own decisions about whether the names have to be ones we think we’d ACTUALLY USE in that hypothetical scenario, or just our FAVORITE names starting with that letter, regardless of whether we think the names are practical; I am not sure which way I will play it, and I likely won’t be consistent.

• If you already have a child with a name starting with the letter we’re working on, you get to pick again from all the names that remain; you don’t have to choose your child’s name as your favorite just because it WAS your favorite: this is a FRESH baby, and you wouldn’t give it the same name as your existing child. (If you would normally prefer not to repeat an initial within a sibling group, you can just pretend that’s NOT a preference for the sake of the game.)

• You can do as much or as little explanation as you like in your comment: you can just list the names you chose, or you can explain your process/preferences/reasoning/runners-up, or whatever is most fun.

Today’s letter is P. This one is challenging for me for girls because I have a lot of names starting with P on my list already. Penelope, which was a strong contender if Henry had been a girl, and I still love it. Persephone, which I probably won’t choose because I would flinch every time someone said “Persuh…fone?”—but I like it so much, and I think Persie/Percy is such a great nickname. Philomena and Philippa, with good nickname potential. Polly, which I probably won’t choose because I would like it better as a nickname, I think. Pearl, which I would love to see become more common. For this round, I’m going to play it as what I think I would actually literally choose, and I choose Penelope, and I might try to get Polly to happen as a nickname for it, even though I tend to be conservative/disapproving about such practices in general but what are rules without exceptions—perhaps by using Polliwog as a Fetus Name, or perhaps by brazening it out.

For a boy, I used to love the name Paul, but then I ruined it by using it as a blog name for my husband. I still love the name and want other people to use it for their babies. I like Percy and I love Perry. I like Philip. Penn is cute, and Paul is a Penn and Teller fan so I’m pretty sure I could sell him on it. I love Pete, but I would only want to use it as a nickname for Peter, and I don’t like the name Peter as much (I have this same issue with Charlie/Charles). Here’s what I think would actually happen: I would try to sell Paul on the name Perry, but he wouldn’t go for it; he would want to use Penn, and I wouldn’t be able to quite commit; we would end up using Paul (which is several times a family name, increasing its appeal), and I would choose a different blog pseudonym for my husband, traumatizing everyone briefly but we would recover. But my HEART wants the name Perry, so I am going to defiantly choose it here. PERRY.

Now you! If you want to! Only if it’s fun and not stressful! Feel free to adjust the game-play to be fun and not stressful!