The Baby Name Dilemma

Happy Monday, everyone!

I am hearing about a LOT of bad weather all over North America these days...I know we have had our fair share of it in Nova Scotia so far this winter, including another snow day this past Friday with 20-25 cm of snow in one day. However, we seem to be out of that at least for the moment and I am thinking of everyone in Ontario with the ice and in Newfoundland with the lack of power as well as in the Midwest in the US....looks like some crazy temperatures and weather! It seems like real winter came a bit early, at least in our area, this year. Stay warm, everyone! Here's a picture from our storm on Friday:

via Metronews.ca

One of my major goals over the Christmas break was to sit down with my husband and come up with a short-list of potential baby names. We had a next-to-impossible time agreeing on names when we had Molly, and we actually had never really agreed on a boy name, so we're lucky we got our little girl! I thought this time around might be easier but my husband is crazy particular about names and seems to have a reason for saying no to almost everything I suggest. His only suggestion is Ryan for a boy - but this is one of the only names I have to veto for 2 reasons: 1) my husband's name is Brian, so WAY too confusing in my mind, and 2) I have known many, many Ryans in my lifetime, and a lot of personal history with the name that I'd rather not put onto a new member of our family. One issue my husband has is that many names remind him of someone that he didn't like when he was in kindergarten or something...it is weird, but it's the way he is!

Anyway, long story short, we ran out of time to discuss names over the holidays, but it will be happening this week. We aren't finding out the sex until the baby's birth, so we need a girl name and a boy name. The middle name for either will probably be a family name, so we don't have as much of a problem with that. One of our major problems is that we both have a lot of close first cousins and family members with wonderful names who we don't necessarily want to name the baby after (and we also want to avoid repetition/confusion in the family). I like somewhat traditional names, (some of my front-runners are Claire, Andrea, Anna, Andrew, Christopher) and I don't know what Brian likes besides Ryan. haha. Well, that's not true. He likes the name Molly too, since he picked it! ;)

Let me know if you have any suggestions for us!! I am scouring the baby name sites to find us a hugely comprehensive list, and I hope I find one that the hubby can agree on sometime this week!

Here are a few sites I've used to compile my long list:
Baby Name Genie (this one is actually hilarious)
Baby Name Wizard
BabyCenter.Ca
Nameberry

via Pregnancy Humor.com

Has anyone else had this dilemma? Any tips out there? This post about baby names also cracked me up.