The most popular baby names last year? Jacob, Matthew, Michael and Joshua for boys (how Biblical); Emily, Madison and Hannah for girls (all based on Social Security records).

Naming kids is like buying cars — everyone has plenty of advice, but you’re the one who’s going to have to live with it. With Katherine we tried to pick a name that was:

• one we liked.
• a “classic,” with plenty of tradition and other historic folks with the same name
• devoid of cute i-instead-of-y, y-instead-of-i, or other “let’s make it unique” spellings. Sure, it has the sometimes equally egregious k-instead-of-c thing, but that’s a common variant (and closer to the original Greek it’s derived from).
• not at the top of the popularity list. Not only does that lead to being one of the three X’s in the classroom, for particularly trendy names it can lead to it becoming dated.
• not at the bottom of the popularity list.
• a name with plenty of variations for her to choose from as she got older.

As with cars, your mileage may vary.