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When the day finally arrives and you hear your daughter's first cries in the delivery room, you may already know the name she will carry for the rest of her life. How will you choose that name? Some parents are moved to rake the branches of their family tree and memorialize a cherished ancestor. Others choose the names of favorite celebrities. Still others will choose names whose very sound or meaning resonates with them.

As expectant parents, we most wanted to capture a little piece of family lore, my grandmother's Aunt Hulda, who had come to Boston as a young woman, saved her wages as a mill girl, and later paid the way for my grandmother and her mother to come to the U.S.. Halfway through our pregnancy, we looked at each other. Hulda? No, we just couldn't do it. With twenty weeks left in the pregnancy, we scoured the Internet for help and discovered the U.S. Social Security Administration's Popular Baby Names database. We also discovered that Hulda, as popular in the 1880's as Kristen or Julie are today, was last a Top 1000 name in . . . the 1920's. No, Hulda just wouldn't work.

We set ourselves down with the database's list of most popular names and discovered many timeless classics, shown below, that turned out to be quite well-represented in each of our family trees. So, what are these ten most popular names? Last year's ten most popular U.S. baby girl names, according to Social Security Administration data, are listed below:

Emma: Parents chose the name Emma more than any other when naming their daughters in 2008, returning the name to levels of popularity not seen since the 1880's. During the intervening 120 years, the name's popularity plummeted hard through the 1970's before it began its renaissance among parents of girls born in the 1980's. Emma, which originates from the German word for whole, entire, or universal, first came to English in the early years of the eleventh century with Emma of Normandy, the wife of two kings of England. Adding to its rich history, Emma also claims literary connections, its most famous in Jane Austen's 1815 romance novel, Emma.

Isabella: Best known in history as one of the two Catholic Monarchs (los reyes catlicos) of Spain responsible for financing Christopher Columbus and the expedition that resulted in his discovery of the Americas, Isabella is the second-most popular name of 2008. Isabella is another form of Isabel, which itself is a form of Elizabeth. The name, which means pledged

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