The surest way to screw up your child for life is to name them the wrong name. Choosing a name for a baby-to-be is tough, it's stressful, and it’s akin to serious writer's block. If you go with a "family name," like Norbert, or Herbert, or even just Bert, you risk a kid's childhood wrought with ridicule.

Take for example a middle-aged woman I know named Valva.

Yes V. A. L. V. A. It's not an easy name to just roll off your tongue. In fact it's really hard to say a loud without a giggle that causes your drink to come out your nose. To save my own face, I once tried to call her Val. Oh no. She insisted that her name is Valva, not Val. No nicknames allowed.

Well good for her. She's learned how to say her name with a straight face, so I guess we should too. I wonder if her parents have a sense of humor.

Choosing my first baby's name was sort of easy. I knew that I'd name the child after my mother, Shelby. My daughter's middle name came equally stress free after my husband's grandmother died, so baby's middle name became Rose in grandma's honor. We got the best of both worlds, really, a name that is relatively uncommon (outside of the South) and a name that has deep family ties.

Choosing my second baby's name isn't going to be so easy. I feel like the process requires a relaxed, open-minded and creative enlightenment that only a bottle of wine or two can bring. Except that I can't chug a bottle right now. So I'm left to toss and turn at night, talking to my belly, waiting for that ah-ha moment to come.

It's not working yet. But I'm sure about one criterion: no bible names allowed. No Matthew, Luke, John, Jacob, Elijah, Elizabeth, Mary, Rachael, Ruth, Rebecca, Isaac, Samuel, Daniel, William ... wait, William isn't in the bible, but it's not allowed either.

One gal told me about BabyNameGenie.com, a site in which you enter the baby-to-be's last name and the genie just picks a name for you (you can also indicate a gender, but I chose the "surprise me" option). Unfortunately, the genie violated my one and only rule and chose Moses. Seriously? What are the chances?

Next.

Another website called BabyNames.com is a searchable database of every name you can think of. You can choose names based on nationality, number of syllables, gender, what letter you want a name to begin or end with, or even search by the meaning of a name. The site also lists the top 100 names of each year beginning with 2001 and up to 2008.

And there's a celebrity baby names list, too, which is quite interesting and weird at the same time. I wonder what the etymology of "Fifi-Trixibelle Geldof" is? (Fifi-Trixibelle Geldof is the first-born daughter of rock journalist Paula Yates and Irish singer Bob Geldof.)

So, yeah. With Fifi-Trixibelle and Moses definitely out, I'm at a real loss.

Suggestions anyone?