I know you guys are sick to death of hearing about my love for Joachim, but I have a new question regarding it: As you all know, my husband refuses to budge on the name, and one of the reasons is the NBA player Joakim Noah. My brother, when he discovered that I liked the name, wrinkled his nose and also pointed to Joakim Noah as the reason he doesn’t like it. This is despite the fact that there are a million and one Joachims who play professional hockey and (European) football — those aren’t sports we follow, so they’re off the radar and do nothing to help my cause.

But then, my husband has jokingly (but maybe not?) suggested Donovan about a thousand times because Donovan McNabb used to be his team’s quarterback, and when I told my hubs I was going to suggest Tristan to my other brother and his wife for their little boy on the way, he told me he “doesn’t hate it” and that “Tristan Thompson is pretty well known right now as a basketball player.” So. Apparently that makes a previously not-okay name now okay. When I told my sister-in-law that, she said my brother agreed.

I know the men in my family are not the only ones who are like this — which professional athletes have impacted your baby naming either positively or negatively? I want to hear about them all, but I’m having a particularly hard time coming up with female athletes that have potential to interfere with a couple’s baby naming (other than Anastasia “Nastia” Liukin, who was the topic of quite a few name convos in my family of origin during her Olympics. I’m not pointing any fingers, but you know who you are).