The Bully Pulpit

My wife and I were so pleased with each other, having spent the grueling hours in debate only to emerge with a name for our new baby girl that we both, well, liked: Sophia Elizabeth Stem-Faulk.

Sophia was exotic, it seemed, while not being unusual enough to make future third grade teachers stumble over the syllables during roll call. It's classy, somehow, and reminds you of spending days on a yacht in the Mediterranean, sipping Seltzer and ruminating on Picasso.

After we made the decision, we heard that somehow a few others in our small world had settled on — or at least considered — the same name, but not enough to bother us.

Since Sophia's birth, we know we've made the right decision. She is a Sophia, in the way that kids in a short time come to assume their names as an actual identity, rather than just a label. She could be nothing but Sophia Elizabeth.

But I was still disappointed to learn recently that Sophia was the most popular girl's name for 2007.

Let's just recall that my name is James, and my wife is an Amy. Together, they are about as common as can be for American kids out of the 1970s generations. Along with the Jennifers and Mikes, our names are near the top of every list of names.

Sophia, we'd hoped, would be a bit more original. Alas for that.

But truthfully, it's no real loss. Watching the little three-month-old girl watch me, weighing the facts of a sudden existence and greeting it all with a smile that might just be passing gas, I have no doubt my little girl will make a unique enough mark to emerge from the vast herd of Sophias born in 2007.