Last night we went to the Kennedy Center as a family for what has become a true Astle Christmas Tradition: the Merry Tubachristmas concert. Shelly and I have both talked about it before on our blogs in past years - it's a rare chance to hear about 350 tubas play Christmas carols while your toes pick up the vibrations on the floor. It's a pure analog joy to listen to, even if the music quality isn't great (they've only rehearsed for an hour, they are of all sorts of skill levels, and there are just so many of them it's hard to keep them all together).


This year Ellie decided she wanted to go up to the front to sing "Jingle Bells" with the tubas - they invite kids up every year. And so I went to the Kennedy Center website this morning to see if she got on camera (they archive video of each day's free concert), and lo and behold, she did! Here she is in her favorite "Big Sister" shirt, singing along with the tubas like she belongs there.



And amazingly, during that song they panned the audience and caught the rest of the family straining to get a glimpse of Ellie. The cameraman sure had a better view of her than we did.

We're down to three names: Leah, Mary, and Kate.

Shelly and I had a few conversations a little while ago, and we both agreed that while the eight names we had on our list are all wonderful, we both kind of realized that it was going to be either Leah, Mary, or Kate. I say "a few conversations," because it seems like this development dawned on us slowly, each of us gradually realizing that such-and-such a name was not going to make the cut. Leah, Mary, and Kate were the top three names in our quantified list that I described recently, and they were the clear-cut favorites.

Also, interestingly, we both find ourselves referring to them not in alphabetical order, as we have tried to do throughout this process, but in order of the points they got in that quanitification exercise: Leah, then Mary, then Kate. I think this has somewhat subconsciously led us to the conclusion that this might be the final placing.

Ellie is still doing her thing with Kate, urging us over and over to choose that name, and refusing to believe that there are other possibilities out there. Usually she's been kind of demanding, but Shelly just told me that today she said softly, "Mama, when you and Daddy decide on the baby's name, could you please pick Kate? I really want her to be named Kate." Shelly said that when she puts it like that, she's really hard to refuse. And overall, Ellie has actually kind of warmed me up to the idea, contrary to what I had expected. I like Kate because it sounds different from Ellie and Annie - it's got a couple of hard consonants and a bright vowel, and it's short and sharp. But its disadvantages are that it is very similar to Ellie and Annie in that the given name, Katherine, would be different from what we actually call her, and there's always the looming possibility that the name will lapse into Katie, which is just another -ie name to add to the list. One evening, I realized during a conversation with Shelly that I kind of want this child's name to be different from my other two daughters' names, and with the Katherine and Katie angles, I'm beginning to feel that Kate just may not make the grade.

Mary has been a name that I've been thinking about for a long time, and frankly I'm surprised that I've been as persuasive about it with Shelly as I have been. I like its old-fashioned bona fides, and I like its simplicity and plainness (just like Jane). It also is the only one of the three names left on the list that has any meaning, as the name would definitely evoke for me the mother of Jesus, even if my daughter isn't directly and explicitly "named after" her. But in the way of disadvantages, Mary is very similar to the sounds of Ellie and Annie, even if it does end with a -y instead of an -ie. I just have a hard time picturing myself saying, "These are my daughters: Ellie, Annie, and Mary." And to the extent we have solicited feedback, the attitudes of other people about Mary have been decidedly lukewarm. My mom has come out and said she in fact doesn't like it, because it's so common and plain. (Of course, for our daughter's generation, it won't be nearly so common as the name of our new neice Isabelle.) I don't think anyone has said that, among the final three, Mary is their favorite. Not that popular opinion should rule the day, but it does say something that this name is not inspiring much praise.

Leah, on the other hand, has received almost universal high marks from people we've asked. Some have said they prefer Kate, but all agree that Leah is a wonderful, beautiful name. It has the advantage of being a given name that we will actually use in day-to-day life, it doesn't have any -ie forms, and it's somewhat different in form from my other girls' names (though I have half-joked to Shelly that Leah is just Ellie with the syllables reversed). Shelly has commented more than once that she likes how it's different from our other girls' names but still fits with them stylistically. And I must admit that the name doesn't really have any distinct disadvantages other than the fact that I haven't been in love with it for a very long time like I was with Annie and am with Jane and Mary. Of course, I wasn't in love with Ellie, either, but now I can't imagine my girl being called anything else.

It's come to the point that the other day Shelly - kind of out of the blue, as we weren't having a conversation about it - indicated that she's ready to cast her vote for Leah.

That was a shrewd move by Shelly if she really wants that name, because it gives Leah a decided advantage. Shelly's statement has caused me to start really imagining my daughter with the name Leah in a way I haven't done before. Shelly pointed out, rightly, that we both really like all three of the names, and whichever one we choose is going to be great, and we'll love it and we'll love the girl it's attached to. We just need to decide, she said. And she chose Leah.

I haven't cast my vote yet, but I don't think I'm going to choose Kate (sorry, Ellie). But perhaps even more tellingly, I don't think I'm going to go to the trouble of fighting for Mary. I really like all of these names. And so does Shelly.

It really is getting to the point where we just have to pick one. So should we pick Kate (Ellie's first choice), Mary (mine) or Leah (Shelly's)?

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.

Ellie is in preschool now, and one of the things she does every day is make art. For some reason, at the preschool they don't call it "art" - they call it "crafts." But it's art. She's learning how to use paints and construction paper and everything. Every couple of days she brings home a whole stack of art to show us, and it's getting more and more impressive. Here are a few samples of her work.

First, a family portrait. This is the first time we've been able to actually see the baby in Mommy's tummy. And when I asked her why I have such long hair (that's me in black), she said, "Daddy, I told my teacher that you have sorta long hair in the back."



Next, a piece of abstract art, created using a slice of an apple dipped in poster paint as a stamp (the paper got kind of crinkly with the paint; hence the wavy look).

I'm a couple of days late, but here's a big birthday shout out to my favorite two-year-old in the whole wide world: my little Annie.

Annie is in a transitional phase of her life right now. She still does some baby-ish things (she puts things in her mouth that she shouldn't, and she cries a little too often, though thankfully she has stopped crying when we put her to sleep - just a couple of months ago), but she's working on some decidedly non-baby skills like talking (today when we were walking into Baskin Robbins for some birthday ice cream, I asked her what kind of ice cream she wanted, and she said, "Pink! And Mama brown ice cream!" - she knows her mom loves chocolate) and climbing (she can get into her carseat by herself, and somehow appears to be able to get out of the Pack-n-Play. I still call her "Baby Annie" sometimes, but I need to remind myself that this name is not going to apply for much longer, if indeed it still applies at all.

The more Annie grows up, the more I love her. She is a ton of fun to be around (when she's not crying), and she's even starting to develop a sense of humor - she loves to do things she thinks are funny. She adores her sister Ellie, and I know she'll be a good big sister soon, too.

I love you, little Ann.

Ellie is four years old today. That means I've been a daddy for four whole years. It's been quite a ride.

In honor of Ellie, I'd like to tell a story about a recent experience that I think demonstrates perfectly one of the reasons I love Ellie so much.

Last Friday, the day before Halloween, we went to a Halloween party at some friends' house. As we left (well after normal bedtime for the girls), Ellie and Annie each got a bag containing some candy. We dropped Shelly off at the home of another friend who needed some help, and I was in charge of getting the girls to bed.

As we got into the house, Ellie pulled a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup out of her bag and asked if she could eat it. I said no. She had already had way too many sweets at the party and earlier that day, it was late and time to get in bed right away, and Annie had left her candy in the car and the last thing I needed was an Annie who was crying because she didn't have candy too. Ellie protested that she was "hungry." When I offered her a carrot and she refused, I said too bad. Probably due to the late hour more than anything else, Ellie proceeded to throw a tantrum. This is very atypical of her. She's usually pretty even-tempered. But that night it all came crashing down, and Ellie threw herself on the floor, screaming that she wanted the candy. I said no one more time, and put the candy on the little end table in our living room. I picked up Annie and went upstairs to get her into her PJs. I told Ellie to come with me.

For a few minutes, Ellie stayed downstairs, crying. Once I had Annie ready for bed, I called down to her that she'd better come up right now. "One, two..." Before I got to three, Ellie, still sobbing, started coming up the stairs. When she arrived, she stopped crying and was a good girl about getting ready for bed.

After I said good night, I went back downstairs and saw the candy still sitting there right where I had put it on the end table. Ellie had been left alone with it for a few minutes, and it was right within reach, but it hadn't been touched. A bad kid would have just grabbed it and eaten it, since that was the source of the breakdown and no one was watching.

But Ellie, even at her worst, was an angel. She obeyed me and left the candy alone. She was very unhappy about doing it, but she managed the self-control to do it. I felt a moment of love and gratitude for a daughter whose heart is so pure.

I love you, Ellie. Happy birthday.

With all the talk and anguish we've been having about our new baby girl's first name (and no, there hasn't been a whole lot of progress in the last several weeks since we announced the Top Eight Contenders; what progress there has been will be the subject of a separate post), it's been easy to kind of forget that we intend to give this girl a middle name, too. And there's one name that has emerged as a clear-cut front-runner for the middle name: Kyrie.

That's Kyrie, pronounced "KEER-ee-ay." It's a Greek word, transliterated into Latin, meaning "Lord." It's featured in a particular portion of Christian liturgy, particularly Catholic masses. The complete text of the Kyrie is: "Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison," meaning "Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy." (I've also heard "eleison" translated as "save us.") People who are familiar with either liturgical Catholicism or good solid classical music may recognize it (there are plenty of great classical Kyries - if we go with this name, one of them might have to be this girl's song, just as Ellie and Annie each have a song about them, written by Beethoven and John Denver, respectively). Also, for the lower-brow set, recall that Mr. Mister had that song in the '80s with the words you didn't understand: "Kyrie eleison down the road that I must travel..."

Why is this the front-runner for our daughter's middle name? Well, we've been stewing about it ever since we were thinking about Ellie's name. Although I was familiar with the Kyrie in the liturgy, the first (and frankly, only) time I'd heard it used as a name was a girl in our ward in Cambridge whose parents were both professional musicians. Shelly and I both thought it was a daring and insightful name, though we agreed it was a little too much for a first name. After all, most people, upon seeing it in the context of a girl's name, would pronounce it wrong (probably "KIE-ree"), and that violates one of the fundamental rules of naming. Conversely, upon hearing it spoken, it's not obvious how to spell it. Kyrie is also not clearly and obviously a female name (after all, it's a title for a male person), thus violating another one of the fundamental rules.

But the fundamental rules don't apply to middle names. No one is actually going to call our girl "Kyrie," so we don't have a problem with giving her such an unusual and, frankly, esoteric name. People who are cool enough (or Catholic enough, I guess) to have heard of the Kyrie will manifest themselves* and those who aren't will just pass it off as an odd name. Which it is.

But I think Shelly and I really like it because of what it means. Who better to name your child after than Jesus Christ, the Lord himself? In fact, I'm really taken with the notion of naming this kid Mary Kyrie Astle (if she's born on Christmas Day, I just might insist on it) - it's a very religious, reverent name, in my opinion. Whereas Ellie's name looks forward and Annie's name looks backward, a girl named Kyrie - especially Mary Kyrie - would look upward.**

It's not a done deal yet, of course. The middle name depends heavily on the first name, so that rhythm and sound matching can be taken care of. But don't be surprised if our daughter comes with a middle name you can't pronounce.

* It's a lot like my friends who named their son Thelonius. One reason for doing so is that they wanted to see who was smart enough to know who Thelonious Monk was. They misspelled his name (or did Monk misspell his?), but the same principle is in place. Oh, and lest you think the poor child is doomed to a life of a crazy name, he goes by Theo.

** Does that mean that a fourth daughter would need a name that looks downward? Gaia Terra Astle, anyone? Nah.

Perhaps it's appropriate to break a month-long blog silence with a post that I've been failing to get around to for several months. Way back in March, I completed a major personal project that deserves crowing about. I made myself a Mission Book.

I don't really recall where or when I decided that this is something I wanted to do. It might have been as far back as 2007. But as soon as I latched on to the idea of collecting the records of my mission into one place, it got a little more and more elaborate. The finished product took me over a year of working on it during nearly every moment I could spare (and some that I couldn't), and it's quite an elaborate thing. But it's going to be a priceless record for me and for my family.

My Mission Book is a compilation of everything I could find that documents my mission to Brazil from 1995 through 1997. The first (and most tedious) step in the process was to transcribe all of my mission journals. Having mostly kept my mission goal of writing in my journal at least every other day, that's a lot of text.

Then I transcribed all of the letters that I wrote to my parents. My saintly mother had saved them all in a nice three-ring binder - she even had transcribed some of the mini-tapes I had recorded (which have since been lost). With both the journals and the letters, I added commentary, translating the random Portuguese words I used, and explaining to a reader who didn't know me in 1995 about the identities of people I talked about and events from my personal history that were alluded to but never explained. I also wrote a three-page introduction.

As if that textual work weren't enough, I then scanned all of the over 300 photographs I took as a missionary.

Of course, these prints have been sitting in a binder for years, and thanks to less-than-stellar Brazilian developing shops, they weren't brilliant and vibrant to begin with, so the next step was to Photoshop every one of those pictures, removing the scratches and discolorations, and tweaking the color levels so the people didn't look like yellow aliens.

Along the way I digitized a few other things - I scanned my missionary nametags, my transfer cards, my visas, my Brazilian driver's license, the newsletters I had written while in the mission office, my release letter from my mission president, and my notes for my homecoming talk. I even scanned a bumper sticker I got at Sin City Cycles in Lynn, Massachusetts while I was waiting for my visa to get into Brazil. I also created a few maps of my areas from Google Maps, and photographed my beat-up White Bible.

A year or so later, after I had all of my content assembled, I started the project of designing the book. I first tried Scribus, an open-source desktop publishing program, but it proved a bit cumbersome to use for a neophyte like me, so I opted instead for Adobe InDesign, one of the industry standard programs. The problem was that InDesign costs several hundred dollars, and I didn't want to spend that much money. But no worries - you can download a 30-day free trial. So all I had to do was to put all of this into a beautiful graphic design. This was the hardest part - working against the clock to pull it all together. I think I did a decent job - I used a different color theme for each of my areas, which nicely divided the 300-plus pages into chapters.

Then all I had to do was take the resulting PDF and upload it to Lulu.com, where I fought the file-format demons for a week before going ahead and ordering a single copy of print-on-demand goodness. The price was a bit steep (they charge by the page), but it was definitely worth it. I still have the electronic copy up there, so I can print other copies for my kids later on. The printing quality was awesome - the book looks great, and I couldn't be happier (unless it had cost less).

This was a very difficult and time-consuming task, but it was one of the most fulfilling personal projects I've done in a long time. Yeah, this blog is cool, but that mission book is a hefty reminder of one of the most important - and certainly the most unique - times of my life.

Here are some pictures of the covers, a chapter title page, a representative page, and a view of the Appendix, where I stuffed all the miscellaneous stuff (this is a couple of the mission newsletters).

I watched the movie "Cocoon" last night, and found it to be not just a well-made and well-acted movie, but quite a thought-provoking one as well. Like all quality science fiction, it focused more on the human reactions to the supernatural circumstances than on the supernaturality itself, and those human reactions made me think, oddly enough, about the LDS doctrine of eternal families.

Here's a little plot summary so I can make my point (and if you haven't seen this movie in the 24 years since it came out in 1985, then you can't complain that I'm going to spoil the plot here).

There's a lot more to the plot than this, but the important part for my purposes comes near the end. There's a group of benevolent aliens who have power over something they call "life force," who invite a bunch of old people from a rest home to join them in outer space. If they decide to go with the aliens, they will never get sick, grow old(er), or die. For its final half hour or so, the movie grapples with questions of life and death, as the old folks decide whether to go or to stay, and figure out how to say goodbye to Earth.

The most poignant part for me was when one man, Joe, who has terminal cancer and who has recently had a falling out with his wife due to his infidelity, tries to convince her to a) forgive him, and b) join him on the spaceship. He said, "I want to go. But if it's a choice between six months here with you and eternity by myself up there, I'd rather stay with you." Another touching moment was when another old guy, Ben, tells his grandson goodbye, assuring him they will never see each other again, but that Grandpa and Grandma will be happy where they are going.

The movie doesn't make the themes explicitly religious (except when a minister who believes the old folks have died assures everyone in the final funeral scene that they're in a better place), but "outer space" here is very analogous to "heaven." I, like Joe, can't imagine going to heaven without my wife. It wouldn't be heaven to me without her. Fortunately, I don't have to worry like he did - we have been sealed in the temple, so I am certain that although one of us might get there before the other one, we will both be on that spaceship together. And like the old folks on the spaceship, we will then have the rest of eternity to spend together. (Though of course, if, like Joe, I'm not faithful to my marital vows, that promise of eternal togetherness isn't there.) In fact, some of the most memorable parts of the movie were simply the looks that the old married couples gave to each other as they made up their minds to do it, knowing that they would, indeed, be together forever. Contrast that with their one friend, Bernie, who doesn't really believe in the aliens - or at least doesn't want to have anything to do with them. His Alzheimer's-suffering wife passes away before he tries to use the aliens' life force to help her, but it's too late. Then, by himself, he still refuses to get on the spaceship because that isn't what he wants. He thinks it's "unnatural." But I bet if his wife were able to go with him, he'd do it. (I guess that's why we do work for the dead - unlike with Bernie, it's never too late.)

I know that I'll never have to leave my children and grandchildren (or my parents and grandparents) forever, as these characters did when they boarded the spaceship. In fact, that's the glory of the whole plan: the door to the spaceship is always open, and if we remain faithful, we can all get on it, and we'll all be there. In the movie, the decision to go was bittersweet, but in the Gospel, it's only sweet.

It's a rare sci-fi movie that gets me a little choked up as I watch it, as "Cocoon" did. It's an even rarer sci-fi movie that gets me a little choked up because it reaffirms my testimony of the Plan of Salvation, Heavenly Father's love for his children, and my love for my own family.

Soon after I got all my recent posting done about our heavy work on the name-choosing front that one Saturday, Shelly cornered me one evening and insisted that we take the Fifteen Contenders and cull them down further. During the course of the conversation, we realized that the 15 names could be divided easily into three equal groups of five: names that I was the primary proponent of, names that Shelly was the primary proponent of, and names that we both seemed to be joint proponents of. My five were Jane, Paige, Mary, Tessa, and Faith. Shelly's were Katherine, Jenna, Georgia, Hazel, and Maria. The joint names, of course, were Sarah, Julia, Leah, Rachel, and Melanie. (Shelly thought that I would have jointly sponsored Maria with her, but she was surprised to learn that I am an advocate of the English version of the name, but not the Spanish/Portuguese/Latin version - Maria and Mary are the same name, after all, so one cannot endorse both versions).

Shelly's suggestion was that we each voluntarily eliminate one or two of the names in our own sponsorship category. Under duress, I admitted that of the five that I was sponsoring, Faith was lowest on my list. Faith got axed.

Shelly's turn. She picked Hazel, and it summarily bit the dust.

She pressed me for another elimination. I was torn. Jane has been my personal top choice pretty much ever since Annie got crossed off the list, so it was untouchable. But I got the sense that Shelly really had negative feelings towards Paige and Tessa (in contrast to the fact that I actually kind of like all of the names she's sponsoring (okay, except for Maria, about which I'm lukewarm at best, given that it's the same as Mary, which I really like)). And I didn't want to eliminate a name that, given her feelings, possibly had a chance. So I asked her which name she liked least - Paige or Tessa. I would eliminate the one she had the most negative feelings about. She didn't like having to choose between two names she didn't really like, but she chose Paige.

Shelly's turn. She admitted that as much as she likes Georgia, it's probably not one she wants to use as a first name. She made sure to reserve its use as a possible middle name (we haven't even really discussed middle names very much, but I think we're agreed that we're both open to some crazy ideas for middle names that we wouldn't consider for first names*), and she eliminated it.

Then we both realized that of the five jointly sponsored names, as they say, "One of these things is not like the others." Melanie, though it is a fine name that we both like, isn't in the same league with Julia, Rachel, Leah, and Sarah. Gone.

That left us with ten names: Jane, Jenna, Julia, Katherine, Leah, Maria, Mary, Rachel, and Sarah, and Tessa.

Just to see where we were, I suggested that we each use a secret ballot to rank those ten names in order of our preference. We could then compare how we each feel about each of them, and see where we're in agreement - whether it be that we agree we like a name, or we agree that we don't like a name as much. We assigned 10 points to each of our first choice names, 9 to second choice, and so on, down to 1 point for our tenth choices. Our lists looked pretty different from each other. But when you totaled up each name's points, there were some pretty striking things. The scores went like this:

Leah (15)
Julia (15)
Rachel (14)
Sarah (14)
Katherine (13)
Jane (12)
Maria (5)
Mary (5)
Jenna (5)
Tessa (4)

Two distinct tiers. Of course, the jointly sponsored names were probably bound to do well, but it was also interesting that Katherine was so high, thanks to the fact that I actually ranked it higher than Tessa, which I was sponsoring. Jane only got to where it is because it got ten points from me. For the record, Shelly's ten-pointer was Leah.

It became obvious to me that, based on the scores, a couple more names needed to go. Tessa didn't get much love from either of us. I was sad to see it go, because it's such a wonderful name. But it's gone. Jenna was also eliminated. Mary and Maria were allowed to stay on the list because they're essentially the same name and therefore count as ten points. In fact, I tried as hard as I could to convince Shelly to eliminate Maria because it's the same name as Mary, but she wouldn't budge. Yet.

This whole process and conversation probably took less time than it has taken me to write about it here. We went from 15 names down to 8 in just a few minutes. This was more than a week ago now, and we haven't really discussed names since then. Up until now, it's been a process of making sure we have considered all of our possible options, and eliminating non-contenders that we're not serious about. I think we've finally arrived at a list of names that we're serious about (except for Maria, which (as I think I've mentioned) is the same name as Mary and therefore needs to be eliminated because the baby's native language will be English). The points listed above aren't necessarily going to come back into play. I think we're going to stew over this list for a while.

Again, the final eight, in alphabetical order:

Jane
Julia
Katherine
Leah
Maria
Mary
Rachel
Sarah

* I mean, look at our two daughters' middle names. Virginia is a brash forward-looking tribute to our adopted home state, and Lynn is deliberately intended to be a little funny, as it is my Dad's name.