We're insane and undecided, so help us choose a baby name

Husband-and-wife journalists Bob Miller and Callie Clark Miller share the same small house (still), work in the same office (again) and somehow manage to cling to their sanity (barely). Older and wiser (she's wiser, he's just older), the Southeast Missourian sweethearts offer their views on everyday issues, told from two different perspectives.

SHE SAID: Apparently, 50,001 just wasn't enough.

That's the number of options in the baby name book we bought. And just like with adorable clothes, the opportunities for girl names seemed so much more expansive than boy names.

We narrowed down our list of girl names from 30 to 10 in the first trimester, then down to basically a couple now that we're very happy with.

But a few weeks ago, about the time we scheduled the ultrasound that will (hopefully) tell us if we're having a girl or boy, I started worrying that we basically have no names picked out for a little boy.

It's important to prepare for a boy, because up to now, we've kind of been thinking girl. But then, a few nights ago, I had a dream about a baby boy who peed in my face while I was trying to change his diaper.

The ultrasound is in three days. The pressure to come up with a viable boy name is building (I would really like to stop calling the baby "it" as soon as possible).

So I borrowed a pregnant pal's book of 100,000 baby names. That's right, 49,999 MORE than in my original book.

These books are pretty cool, by the way, because they not only list the name and the origin, but group names by category. For example, Names of Future Presidents. Names of Nerds. Names of Fashionistas.

Callie happens to fall under "Pistols, Wild-things and Pieces-of-work." Bob can be found under "Middle Management." It's downright freaky how on-target those categories are.

And just as Bob and Callie are pretty far apart in the above descriptions, we've been pretty far apart on choosing a baby name, too. The biggest discrepancy was over two girl names: Greer and Mallory. I don't remember seeing Greer in a baby name book or anything, but for some reason it sort of appealed to me. All Bob can do when I mention Greer is make Tony-the-Tiger growling noises. "It's greeeeereat!"

And then there's Mallory, which happens to be his mom's maiden name. Now I bet there are a lot of wonderful Mallories in this world, but the only one I've ever encountered was a neighbor girl when I was about 12 who really annoyed me. Mallory just has a negative connotation for me.

But once we moved past those two names, Bob and I pretty much agreed (or maybe I just wore him down). But even though Bob and I are unified on a girl name -- Maddox Elizabeth, Maddie for short -- we have received some flak from family and friends. So we're still waffling on that, too. And the other day I read that Demi Moore's daughter's name is Scout LaRue and now I can't get that name out of my head (our favorite book is To Kill a Mockingbird; note Harper on our girl list).

See how confused we are, even when we think we've settled on a name?

And the boy name really has us stumped. So I thought, who better to help us decide than you? That's right, you. The reader. The folks who have taken time out of their busy schedules (or who simply have nothing else to do) to read our column today.

So here's a list of names we're considering, for both a girl and boy. Weigh in on your favorites by e-mailing cmiller@semissourian.com or log on to shethemagazine.com.

OUR FAVORITES (in no particular order)

Girls:

Kiele

Laken

Harper

Beckham (a family name)

Maddox

Boys:

Grady

Tucker

Maddox

Cale

Sawyer

You can also log on to our pregnancy blog (shethemagazine.com/blogs/babymamadrama) to see ultrasound pics in the next week, provided everything goes OK Wednesday.

Bob Miller is the Southeast Missourian's managing editor. Callie Clark Miller is managing editor of online/special publications. In a moment of total insanity, they actually considered "Seven" as a name for their baby. No idea why, but at least the moment has passed.