As my husband and I are expecting our second baby in April, we are currently playing the name game.

This is a tough game to win.

We actually got very lucky with our first baby when we both fell in love with the same name at the same time. We named our baby boy Phoenix and we couldn’t have been happier with this name. I didn’t realize back then how unusual this must be. For what really are the chances that the name that you cannot live without will be the same name that he is in love with? Pretty unlikely.

Therefore it stands to reason that one or both of you will have to find a compromise and agree upon a name that both of you can, at least live with, and hopefully, like very much.

I am not okay with compromising on this issue. And neither is my husband. So we are on an endless search at the present to find a name that we both love as much as Phoenix. I think I have seen every name conceivable by now and I am getting concerned that this will not resolve happily for both of us.

There is an additional part of the problem: along with the trend of parents giving their babies very unusual names, there is–at least I feel–a tremendous amount of pressure not to use any of these unique monikers.

This is frustrating because occasionally I will find a name in a book or some other medium that we both really love and I find myself saying, “oh, we can’t use that because that is what ’so and so celebrity’ named their baby.”

How will it look to my friends and associates if I name my child Maddox or Shiloh or Suri or even Violet? I feel it will reflect a very negative light–it just comes off like we are star-obsessed. Regardless of the fact that I may have not even thought of a particular name until I saw it in a baby name book, if a celebrity has already used it, I feel like it’s too late for me. Now, no matter what, it looks like I got the name from the celeb and I HATE that!

My husband disagrees. “Do you know how many “Scott’s” there were in my classes growing up?!”.

I understand there were a lot of Scott’s. What my husband, Scott, doesn’t understand is that is precisely WHY people started with these crazy names in the first place. They don’t WANT anyone to have the same name as their kid.

I don’t think our parents cared about this aspect of baby naming. They were quite happy picking their favorite from list of about 20 names. Michael, Allison, Jeff, Michelle, Lisa, David…these were our friends growing up, and no one cared that there were 4 of each.

The truth is that in 10 years, maybe even 5, no one will remember, and your child–my child–will have individuality and a personality and whatever name we decide to give him will have become truly his own.

I guess the trick now is just really not caring what other people think. Or maybe I should make a NiX baby t-shirt that says, “My parents got my name from a BABY BOOK. They SWEAR!”.