we are so unoriginal

apparently, we basically named our daughter jane smith.

for those of you who know our daughter's first name, you know it is not a very common name. in fact, i've never met another "m" in my life. poor thing: we gave her quite the name handful, since we tacked on not one, but two middle names in addition to aforementioned complicated first name.

here's the thing...i felt like we were sort of original and unique, as none of the names we picked were in the top 100, and they didn't even register on the baby name wizard (a very fun and addictive website whether you have a kidlet to name or not. go ahead, try it...click on the link and see where your name ranks in popularity over the years...)

well, i recently read this very funny yet disheartening article in the daily beast, 10 ways to avoid hipster baby names. first of all, i am certainly not self declaring as a hipster. hello, have you seen my wardrobe lately? little m kicks my bootie in the hipster department. nonetheless, i was innocently reading the article, chuckling to myself at some of the rules:

• IF A SUPERMODEL WOULD CHOOSE THIS NAME FOR HER BABY, STAY AWAY.
  
• NO NAMES YOU MIGHT USE FOR A DOG.
  
• DON’T PICK ANY NAME THAT STARTS WITH I OR Z OR ENDS WITH X OR O.

hahaha...and then, i stop giggling. 

i spot little m's first middle name staring out at me from under the heading AVOID NAMES CHOSEN BY HIPSTER CELEBRITIES. ok, whatever, i say to myself. that isn't why we picked the middle name scarlett! it had absolutely nothing to do with any celebrity being named or naming their child scarlett. we had very meaningful and specific reasons, and we threw the extra t on there because it looked more interesting.

i'm still feeling ok, albeit a little on the cliche side, when i stumble upon the rule AVOID THE NAMES OF HIGH-FALUTIN’ LITERARY CHARACTERS. a few sentences down, now glaring out at me, i see middle name number 2: scout. are you kidding me? now thoroughly deflated, i click the link to nameberry's list of hipster baby names to see if any of the other runner-up names on our boy and girl name lists happened to be represented. luckily, only one or two made it onto the list besides the two we picked, but there were enough there to make me feel like one big not-even-hipster-picking-names-out-of-the-too-cool-for-school-list. 

i still think m's name rocks and fits her perfectly, so i can take it. of course, we'll see how she feels about it once she hits the age of 13, but we've got some time. anyway, you should have seen our boy name! it perhaps, maybe a little bit, broke a rule or two as well. (let's not even get started on #8 of the list. i contend that not only would i go to m, but i've been to m. so there.)

sigh, back to my life as a not very hip hipster mom: i'm going to throw on some indie music, pull on my skinny jeans, and drink some coffee.