Tired now.  More info on the name soon.  Tomorrow?  Who knows?  Only Sean.

…and amazingly, one of the 4 is mine. I thought I’d be thoroughly wiped out by now. The baby-naming-gods must be keeping an eye on me.

Oh! We did think of another name to add to the list: Raul, Jr.

Isn’t it brilliant? That way, no one will mispronounce the kid’s name the way they do mine, and we turn it into a family name in one fell swoop! (By the way, did you know the savage origin of that phrase? I didn’t. I do now.)

Alright, folks — I’m really going to have to be punctual on the next (and final) tourney update, ’cause we are already in baby birthing range.

Ready? Set. VOTE!

Click below for the continued tourney!

“What’s In a Name” vs. “A Rose By Any Other Name”

I’m back (again) from traveling (again), and so am late (again) to update the tournament.

We had some tight battles this week, with some not-so-surprising results. All of my names have now been knocked out of the tournament but one. You guys are mean.

Our current favorite is still in the running, though. Let’s see if you can knock him out.

Click below for the continued tourney!

the “What’s In a Name” Division

We’re having so much fun in Golden, we’re a day late updating the competition.

So let’s get caught up:  You guys are all crazy.  In all but 3 of the sixteen pairings, you people chose Sarah’s names over mine.  Even on Mason vs. Mason.  What’s the matter with you people?

I guess I’m going to have to pick some new favorites…

Let’s get to this week’s matchups:

Click below to continue on to the tournament!

the “What’s In a Name” Division

The tournament consists of 32 names: 16 picked by Rahul and 16 picked by Sarah. We asked Tatiana if she had any ideas, and she said “ackitow” (which translates to “tractor”), so we decided she wasn’t taking this seriously enough.

Each list of 16 names was compiled in secret.  We then pitted them, one name against another. First Sarah revealed one of her names, and then I picked one of mine to compete against it. Then I picked one of mine, and she one of hers to try to beat mine. And so on.  It was intense.

Pairings in place, they were divided into the divisions you see below.

It is now up to you. Every week you will vote, and every week the list will be cut in half ’til we have one name left (Sarah wouldn’t let me add Highlander to the list, but we all know that would have won).

The voting system we’re using allows you to vote more than one time, but we ask that you limit it to one vote per person, please. If you want to come back to the page to see who’s winning, click on the link that says “show results” instead of voting again… We’ll know if you don’t. We’re keeping track.

Also, please feel free to use the comments area at the bottom of the post for discussing the finer points of each name.

Click below to continue on to the tournament!

the “What’s In a Name” Division

I was trying to come up with nice sounding excuses, like I’d rather spend time with Tatiana and Sarah than write about it, but, really, it probably comes mostly down to my travel schedule so far this year:

12/2007- Jan 4 – Bay Area (family)
Jan 20-26 Las Vegas (work)
March 24-27 Salt Lake City (family)
March 28-Apr 6 Bay Area (family)
Apr 16-18 Austin (work)
May 20-Jun 2 Bay Area (family)
June 20-23 LA (fun)
July 11-14 Atlanta (family)
July 18-27 St. Martin/Atlanta (Vacation)
Aug 11-15 James in Omaha (work)
Aug 15-31 Bay Area (family)

Though, in the short-term future, things aren’t looking so free either:

Sep 5-15 Golden, CO (family)
Sep 15-18 MN,WI (work)
Oct 1-4 Florida (work)
Oct 22 – Itty-Bitty Due Date

Nonetheless, I’m hopeful that you’ll hear more from us.

At the very least, you’re guaranteed a once-a-week post for the next 6 weeks.

Why?

Because of the 2nd Annual Gupta Family Baby Name Tournament!  Yay!

You may remember last year’s tourney, in which Amelie beat out the unlikely contender, Natalie.  Poor Natalie.  And though we didn’t choose Amelie for Tatiana’s first name, it is her middle name, so well picked, friends!

No matter.  We hope you’re ready for this year’s tournament.  It’ll be starting tomorrow morning and we’ll be kicking it off with an e-mail blast to all of you who aren’t reading this because we haven’t posted in so long and you’ve given up on and forgotten about us.

For a taste of what to expect, these are the names which didn’t make the final cut:

Rahul, Jr.
Rahul Twopointoh
Terrance
Orin
Jackson
Raj
Dashell
Heath
Barack
Dean
Enan
Javed
Satya
Rishi
Xander
Uren
Bo
Victor
Krishan
Lloyd
Boris
Atticus
Adrian
Anton
Ivan
Maxim
Misha
Roman
Julian
Aaron
Evan
Grant
Noah
Neil
AIdan
Benjamin
Rehan
Ray
Jay
Kavi

See you tomorrow!

Now, I won’t say our tournament is quite as prestigious as, say, Wimbledon, but with over 70 voters, I must say it was a more successful tournament than I had expected.

Now, without further ado, the winner of the First Annual(?!) Baby Name Face-off:

Amelie

Amelie faced a host of tough competitors, but when it came to the end, she took care of Natalie without even breaking a sweat. Along the way, poor Natalie even got replaced on our lists by Natalia (thanks, Swati!).

We’d like to thank all the names for participating in the tournament. Yes, even you, Claudette.

And, Amelie, I want to remind you that winning this tournament doesn’t guarantee that you’ll be on our baby’s gift certificate. It’s kind of like winning the people’s choice awards. At the very least you will always be our “couldabin”.

I feel I should take this opportunity to point out that Amelie was on my list of names, not Sarah’s. I’m not trying to suggest anything by pointing that out… I’m just sayin’ is all.

(please note: the picture above is of 2006 Wimbledon Winner, Am�lie Simone Mauresmo, not our yet-to-be-named daughter.)

Natalie beat Jasmine.

Let’s see who else Natalie beat to get here: Circe, Noemi, Alia

Amelie (of course) beat out Grace.

Let’s see who else Amelie beat to get here: Claudette, Lily, Jasmine

In both cases it looks like they got a free pass on the first round, but the competition got tougher.

Let’s see who’s the toughest.

Baby Names, let’s get ready to rumble.

The Final Round

(disclaimer: The winning name of this tournament is not guaranteed to be the name of our baby. This is for your amusement and ours… and if the kid ever misbehaves we can say things like, “I wonder if you would have turned out better if we had named you ‘x’ like everyone said.”)

Grace and Natalie over Penelope and Alia?

Seriously?

Well, at lease Alia was close to making it…

At any rate, here we are down to the final four. It appears if we’ve got a couple of Dark Horses going up against a certain fan favorite, Amelie, and the most divisive name in the tournament, Jasmine.

It seems to me that Jasmine is a shoo-in over Natalie, but stranger things have happened.

Ahhhh. Remember the good old days, back when we voted nearly as one against Beatrice? Remember?

Now that we’re here, near the end, we’re going to toss in our last name, “Gupta”, to spice it up a bit. Say the names out loud, let them roll around in your mouth. (Not that GUPTA rolls all that well. Give it a shot. It’s a sound babies like to say, so I’ve been told.)

And since things are starting to get serious in this tournament, I want to make a clarification on a name:

Amelie is pronounced “Ah-muh-lee”, not “Uh-meal-ya”.

Vote… enjoy… next week, we’ll be down to 2!

(unless the baby shows up before then… then we’ll be down to one.)

the “They Call Me Baby Driver” division
vs.
the “Baby What’s Your Name” division

the “They Call Me Sweetness” division
vs.
the “Who’s That Girl” division

(disclaimer: The winning name of this tournament is not guaranteed to be the name of our baby. This is for your amusement and ours… and if the kid ever misbehaves we can say things like, “I wonder if you would have turned out better if we had named you ‘x’ like everyone said.”)