So I was trying to decide what to name my newborn baby, and naturally I went to www.babynames.com. Now babynames has a lot of names. Over 6,500 in fact. Even if you know the gender of child (female in the present case), that’s still like 3,250 names to sort through, and I just don’t have that kind of time.

So I decided to check out some the name lists. I skipped right over celebrity names. How about Shakespeare names? Some of those names are right out. Like a certain name from Midsummer’s Night Dream. You know which ones I’m talking about. But some of are quite lovely. I’m rather partial towards Cordillia, but I don’t know if I’d like to put that sort of pressure on my child.

So next I decided to check out the Tolkien names. With the massive popularity of the three films I guess a generation of Eowyns and Legolases is inevitable, but for me, I can’t hear the names without thinking of the movies, so as much as I might want to call my child Wormtongue or Farmer Maggot, I just can’t bring myself to do so.

So then I checked... spooky names? Okay people, I was trying to be serious here, but if you can’t hold up your end of the deal, I’ll go someplace else.

Continuing my name search, I said to myself "Matthew J, why don’t you just solve this problem like you do every other: by giving in to peer pressure." So I decided to see what the most popular name today was. As it turns out Emily, is not only the most popular name of 2004, it has been the most popular girls name since 1996. "Wow," I said to myself, "that's a lot of years to be the most popular name. I bet there aren't any other names that have been that popular that long."

Oh how wrong I was. There was once a name dominated other names like no other, and that name was Mary. Mary was the mot popular girls name in America from the year 1880 (when they began keeping track) to the year 1946. It was temporarily supplanted by Linda in 1947, only to make a comeback in 1953. However that defeat was the begging of the end for Mary. In 1962, she began a gradual, but constant slide downwards, until she became only the 63rd most popular name, right between Madeline and Eowyn.

Bu in her day Mary was the unquestioned champion. While today’s most popular name (Emily) commands only 1.2412% of new births, in 1920 5.7065% of female babies were named Mary. That means that if you had twenty baby girls in the same room. One of them was guaranteed to be named Mary.

I have decided that Mary should be restored to its former position as the most popular name in America, so I am starting a conspiracy of Marys. I’m going to name my new child Mary, and I strongly advise everybody else who is expecting to do the same thing. Even if you’re having a boy. Just spell it Merry.

Of course, even Mary can’t compete with Giovanni in his prime.