Names for a Girl

We took dinner to some old friends who are expecting their second child any day now. They had some baby name books. The first child took their girl's name, so they need a replacement. These are not the sort of people to find out the sex of their child until the doctor holds it up and shouts, "It's a _____!" Nor, it turns out, are they the sort of people with any time before 9 months of gestation to decide on a name. Oh, well, we all know how long it took Beau to get a name (and only by the skin of his teeth did he avoid being called Ivan).

And so, here are my favorite girls' names, since I spent the evening looking through them.

1. Clara. It's just simple and clean. It reminds me of Claire my old baby-sitter, but it's a wee bit more elegant. I'm probably just thinking of the Nutcracker, and extrapolating that any girl named Clara knows ballet.
   
2. Asdis. This one is definitely because I had a girl-crush on the girl named Asdis at my high school. It's Icelandic. I don't think it works with my last name, but if I mother a child with an Icelandic type we can give her his name, just so her first name can be Asdis.
3. Isabel. I know it's trendy. I just like it. I can't help being a herd follower.
4. Molly. It just strikes me as a solid, friendly name. Could you imagine someone named Molly embezzling money from retirees? Are you going to cry because you got stuck sitting next to Molly on the seating chart? No, you're going to be glad to be so lucky. You could be sitting next to Brittani, and then you'd have to defend yourself against tattling all day long.
5. Nora. I seem to like surprisingly girlish names for girls. Girlish and elegant, like Nora. I liked being an Alex, but I'm drawn to names with a clear femininity to them.

OK, so those are the names. We'll see if the pregnant friends go and steal one of them from me.