Guest blogger Jennifer Maselli finds herself nursing Baby Name Fever, and the only (elusive) cure is the perfect name.

Since finding out that our third and final child – due this fall – is a girl, I have become afflicted with something I like to call “Baby Name Fever.” I’ve been hit with The Fever before, but never quite this hard. Because this will be our last baby, I feel an urgency, a great pressure, to find the right name for her.

It’s made me a little crazy.

I’ve started carrying baby name books around with me wherever I go so that I can look up names whenever they pop into my head.

“But officer, I wasn’t talking on my cell phone. I was looking up “Keturah” in this baby name book.”

“Step out of the car, ma’am.”

“But I need to know what it means!”

I spend hours trolling the Internet, reading all the name blogs and boards, obsessively digging through the Social Security website and the London Telegraph baby announcements.

“Mommy, when are you going to get off the computer? I’m hungry.”

“I’ll be right there.”

“You said that 3 hours ago!”

I’ve begged my friends to please release their reserved baby names back into the general population so that I can use them.

“I know Frances was your dead grandmother’s name, but do you mind if I use it?”

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