Ask E. Jean – Can You Call Shotgun On A Baby Name?

Dear E. Jean: I don’t know if I’ll ever have kids, but one of my dearest friends is pregnant. She may be having a girl, and the name she’s chosen is Isabel. That’s the name I’ve always wanted if I were to have a baby girl! I’m distraught! —Tormented

Tormented, hunny: Run, get your binoculars. Go outside. Look up. Good. See the one billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy? You do? Excellent. Now look through the Hubble Space Telescope. See the 400 billion galaxies beyond our Milky Way? Fine. Now look at the billions of stars in each of those 400 billion galaxies—very good. If you would now just adjust the lens…that’s right…you’ll see something amazing: Amid the trillions of planets orbiting the billions of stars in the billions of galaxies, you may—if you look quite, quite closely—just see room for two little girls named Isabel.

This letter is from the Ask E. Jean Archive, 1993-2017. Send questions to E. Jean at [email protected].