We've been sitting on our list of eight finalists for a long time now. We can both rattle them off pretty quickly (in alphabetical order) when people ask what names we're thinking of: Jane, Julia, Katherine, Leah, Maria, Mary, Rachel, Sarah. We tell people and sometimes they give feedback. It is actually surprising how little feedback we get, though - I guess some people are afraid of saying they don't like one of the names we obviously do like, or else they don't want to sway the process by expressing outright partisanship in favor of a name they do like. Or, more likely, they're ambivalent about all eight names and really don't have anything to say while they're thinking, "Gosh, those are boring - how about something exciting like Brooklyn?" To which I say: "Brooklyn is a place, not a girl."

But even among Shelly and me, we didn't have much luck narrowing the list down. I started to express my lack of enthusiasm for Maria on this blog, and Shelly has made her non-support of Jane well-known since Ellie was on the way. But Shelly clung to Maria and I to Jane, so we didn't even get very far that way.

A while ago we decided to try to break the deadlock using a quantitative method. Each of us would rank the eight names in order of preference, and we would assign points based on the combined rankings. We had done this before in a previous round, and it had worked, so we decided to try it again. Here are the results, assigning 8 points for a first-place vote, down to 1 point for an eighth place vote (the three names Shelly couldn't decide between for second place each got 6 points - the average of what a second-, third-, and fourth-place name would get):

Matt's List
1. Jane
2. Mary
3. Leah
4. Katherine
5. Julia
6. Rachel
7. Sarah
8. Maria

Shelly's List
1. Leah
2 (t). Katherine
2 (t). Mary
2 (t). Sarah
5. Maria
6. Rachel
7. Julia
8. Jane

Total Points
1. Leah (14)
2. Mary (13)
3. Katherine (11)
4. Jane (9)
5. Sarah (8)
6 (t). Julia (6)
6 (t). Rachel (6)
8. Maria (5)

This left us with the unmistakable impression that we have a top three, a middle two, and a bottom three. We mentioned that fact to each other, and then went off and lived our lives for several days and weeks. It turned out that we have kind of stopped talking about the other names besides Leah, Mary, and Kate. These are, after all, the three names that appeared in the top four for both of us. It's kind of funny, actually. We haven't officially eliminated any other names, though I think we both realize that at least Julia, Rachel, and Maria are not going to happen. Jane and Sarah are still technically in the running, but they're not too likely right now. One thing that has helped out the cause of Leah is that to the extent we have received feedback, Leah is the name that has received almost universal positive reviews.

Of course, Ellie has her own ideas. Ask her, and the baby's name is Kate. It's decided. Kate, Kate, Kate. She's got Annie saying it too, but every now and then, Annie will say she likes "Arah." We think maybe Annie only says "Kate" because it's easy for her to say. I keep reminding Ellie that she's not in charge. Frankly, it's a little sad because the fact that she's so enamored with Kate is almost making me go against it, when it's a name that both Shelly and I really do like. We kind of need to insulate ourselves against our opinions of Ellie's opinions. I just hope she can handle it if we go with a different name.