Choosing our baby's name

I struggle to come up with good application names and sometimes even humble variable names; so its no wonder my wife and I are finding it difficult to choose baby names.

We've still got 4-5 weeks to settle on a name, though there's also the middle name issue to sort out, but we both think Jack is a great name. However, and this is where naming a baby differs from naming a variable, Jack has been the most popular boys name in England for at least the past 5 years in a row if not the last 12. We don't want our son to be just another kid with the same name, so this fact is putting us off the name a bit, whereas if the name fits for a variable then its probably a good idea.

We're both agreed that we'd like a strong English name with some appropriate meaning behind it and something that will continue to work throughout his life (there are some names that are great for young children, but less so in your teens... Nickolas gets shortened to Nicky as a boy but as a teenager - well maybe not). We both really like Anglo-Saxon names, but you have to take into consideration how the name will get (ab)used in the playground and quite simply names like Kent or Tostig are too easy to twist to something rude.

Then there's all the names that are out of bounds; the name of the teacher you didn't like at school, other relatives with the name, famous associations etc...