I can already tell that The Wife™ and I are in for one long, knock-down, drag-out fight about the name of this kid. And little does she know that she is SO going to lose.

When we first found out we were pregnant, I asked The Wife™ if we could not find out the sex of the child and, as she usually is, my better half was kind enough to oblige me despite her own feelings on the matter. The problem that this creates, however, is that we have to come up with two sets of names instead of just one, which is mildly akin to performing telekinesis or memorizing every Wikipedia entry.

The central issue here is not that we can’t come up with a list of possibilities, it’s that The Wife™ and I don’t tend to agree on names. Or maybe it’s that anything I come up with is met with a, “Eh, I’m not into that one.” Take the dog for example. The day we got Jonas, his name was Jack (named after Jack Bauer from 24. LAME.) The Wife™ didn’t really like Jack, but also had no real suggestions for changing it. This is her strategy, dissent and criticize but offer no help. So, in this case, when she left me that night to go to an overnight bachelorette party, I picked the name Jonas. Simple as that. I merely informed her of management’s decision the next morning. That’ll teach her to stick me home alone with Baby Mephistopheles.

Finding possible names for your kid is a more daunting task though. Dogs don’t have to worry about their names being truncated and turned into a myriad of mocking nicknames. Dogs don’t have last names that you have to worry about “matching” with. You also have a lot more of a range of acceptability with a dog, because just as it’s okay to name your dog Jack, you can also name it Mr. Barky von Shnauzer. Naming the kid Sargent von PoopyPants likely would result in years of expensive therapy. Or so says The Wife™.

So we’re now in the middle of working on our lists. We’ve both been reading name books (which is like reading the dictionary for giggles) and jotting down notes but it will likely take us until July to decide. Actually, I plan on pulling a Jonas and waiting until she gets up to go to the hospital bathroom to sneak out, find a nurse and tell her the kid’s name that I’ve decided on.

She’ll still be doped up on pain killers. By the time it wears off it’ll be too late to be angry. We’re both to cheap to pay to have a birth certificate changed.