What's in a name?

Over Thanksgiving weekend, PapaBear and I had a long drive to and from our family social commitments. We took the opportunity to start brainstorming names for BabyBear and created a short list for each gender.

I'm sure every couple struggles with finding a mutually agreeable name. In our case, there was a lot of PapaBear throwing out suggestions and me vetoing outright. Eventually, we came to a set of ground rules:

1. No names likely to be associated with strippers or weird Hollywood offspring (e.g., Bambi or Moonbeam)
2. No names commonly held by animals (e.g., Sophie, the name of Colonel Potter's horse on MASH)
3. No names shared by prominent Republicans or celebutants (e.g., George, Dick, Barbara and Jenna are all out)
4. Mind the North Toronto trendiness factor. There are already plenty of kids named Connor, Charlotte, Preston, and Victoria.
5. The name must be one you would call a future CEO. Cute names are fine for a while, but I will not limit my child's professional prospects with "Scooter" or "Chance".

Because I was sure of BabyBear's gender, I started calling the babe by name in the weeks prior to our ultrasound. But I'm willing to step back and consider other options (although PapaBear wasn't completely wrong today when he said, "We all know that you are going to be the one to name this baby") .

We'll go with Paton as a middle name and finish with Greavette, leaving us just one slot to fill. Please feel free to lob over your suggestions for either flavour. If you need inspiration, check out The Baby Name Wizard, a handy tool of the "if you like Jack, you'll like these names" variety.