And we shall call him ... uh ... ?

Our son doesn't have a name.

Well, technically, we don't know if we have a son, and even if we do, he hasn't been born yet. Yet. But either way, he doesn't have a name. And I'm starting to freak out.

I am a Word Nerd. Officially. I joined my favorite professor and another fellow nerd to create this group at Rowan University, called the Word Nerds, for other nerds to join us and discuss words, complain about other people's grammar, critique work memos and restaurant menus, etc. And it's something I've been doing my whole life.

Another thing I've been doing my whole life is choosing my babies' names, and it plays into my love of words. (What are names but beautiful words chosen to perfectly describe your fresh little baby?)

Exactly. Which is why I'm freaking out about not having a name for our son.

Going back a little bit, by the time Bill and I had decided we were going to get married, he had already joined me in naming our unborn children. OK, so maybe he had just started arguing with me over names that I had already chosen. Either way, our family was taking shape. Once we found out I was pregnant, we solidified our favorite choices, but never stopped looking. Now that Baby Pavlou could come at any time, though, we're further away from a decision that we've ever been.

No, you're wrong. That's not what we're naming the baby, so stop asking me if that's right.

And even if you were right, I'm not telling you, and why do you know that anyway? We're keeping this stuff a secret until the baby comes out. Try judging our choice then, when the baby is right there cooing at you, with his or her big (blue) eyes and lots of (dark) hair. I dare you.

So without divulging any of our ideas for names, and therefore divulging the issues we're running into, I'm just going to say that we have a lot of variables we're working with -- some things that we know for certain we want to stick with -- and a lot of names (even names we agree on, if you can imagine) that don't fit those variables.

And, no, you can't help us. We're trapped alone in our self-created hell.