So, congratulations to my friend Tom, whom as of last Wednesday is now the proud father of a baby boy, Nathan Thomas Johnson.

Nathan is an okay name, I guess. It wasn't one of mine, though. Needless to say, for the past few months, Tom, Tom's wife, and myself had spent a lot of time thinking up potential names for the new child.

Though I strongly suspect that the input from a particular one of the three of us was given considerably less weight than the other two.

I'm starting to get older; a lot of my friends seem to be starting their families lately. In addition to my friend Tom, my friends Brian and Nikki have a child due in four months, and now I've just heard that my friends Leif and Rebecca are expecting as well. My main problem is, no one seems to like the names that I come up with. For example, I figured that with a bland last name like "Johnson", the first name of a new child needs to be particularly memorable. "Johnny" would've been my first choice. "Johnny Johnson."

A new movie coming out soon inspired another of my picks, "Ichabod". No one names their kid Ichabod any more. Meanwhile, out of nowhere "Dakota" is suddenly a hugely popular name. I like "Ichabod" way better than "Dakota". Isn't Dakota an Indian word meaning "huge flat expanse of dirt"?

Anyway, I made a few more suggestions. I'm not sure I got to "Wolfgang" before Tom basically stopped listening to what I was saying.

But even though my suggestions all struck out with Tom, I've got lots more friends of childbearing age. For example, it's been pretty well established that our mutual friends Brian and Nikki would never have gotten married if it weren't for the actions of me and my friend Rajiv. Therefore, it's only logical that they should name their firstborn child after us. Obviously "Sean Rajiv Tieman" would be good if it's a boy, and perhaps "Rajiv Sean Tieman" if it's a girl.

Over the last couple years a guy that I used to work with had a couple of daughters. The first one was named "Emma", and the second they named "Abby". When he first told me the name of his newborn second daughter I immediately noted the vowel/double consonant/vowel pattern going there.

"Yes," he admitted, "we thought about that, and that was kind of a factor in the naming decision."

So I assume that this means that when he finally has a son, he gets to name it "Otto". Or perhaps, "Iggy". But he hasn't yet. Perhaps it's just as well.

As for my friend Leif, I haven't started campaigning for any baby names yet. I probably should start soon.

Actually, what I really need to do is start campaigning for the name I have in mind for the future child of my friend Randy Green and his wife. Even though he and his wife don't actually have any children on the way, and as a matter of fact aren't planning to have any anytime soon, I probably need to start as soon as possible regardless.

Because the name that I have in mind for the newborn might require several years of persuading: "Soylent".

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