This is why I shall never chortle at Apple. Or Moon Unit, for that matter.

Thanks to several readers for suggesting this topic. Much better than writing about mulch. I think.

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“HAHAHAHA,” I cackled. “A girl! Now THAT’S a good one!”

Because, honestly, back in 2006, the only way I was having a girl was if the boy I KNEW I was having spontaneously switched genders before being born. I was pregnant. With a boy. We already knew his first name and his middle name. I had already eyed some towels at Pottery Barn Kids that would look splendid monogrammed with his initials. Really, there was nothing left to do but sit back, eat armfuls of pregnancy-entitled cookies, and wait for the baby to float out in what I had decided would be a pain-free experience, much like a pedicure, or maybe a hot-stone massage.  All in all, it was settled.

Then the doctor delivered the news at the 18-week ultrasound. After I dealt with the shock with luridly inappropriate humor, I began to panic mildly. “We don’t have a GIRL NAME!” I bellowed at Adam. “We’re not supposed to be having a GIRL! The monogrammed towels won’t look as good with GIRL INITIALS!”

For a number of weeks, I spent a lot of time pondering names. I tossed out idea after idea to Adam: Hayden! (before “Heroes” ever started!) Daisy! (so reminiscent of straight teeth and tangle-free hair!) Ella! (would feel comfortable with the other 25 Ellas in her class!) He shot down every single one, prompting many a hormone-fueled argument that unfailingly ended with me pelting him with cookies, then immediately demanding he hand them all back to me.

Finally I went to the library, checked out a bunch of baby-name books, and forced Adam to sit down in the kitchen with me. I presented the plan: We would each flip through the books, making a list of the names that appealed to us. If we had a list item in common, then that would be The Name.

Of course, this plan was compromised from the start, since I had been too cheap to buy recently published baby-name books. Most of the library books had been published, oh, a decade or so before I myself was born. Which is why it should come as only a mild surprise that the name we both listed was Aura, a choice that I imagine many a Woodstock-visiting hippie would have applauded with incense-scented gusto.

Nonetheless, we were pleased. Aura means “light ” and “atmosphere,” of course, but Aura is also the goddess of breezes in Greek mythology. It was a pleasant name. It was a meaningful-but-not-overly-meaningful name. And now it would be her name, a name for the girl who was supposed to be a boy.

We didn’t tell a soul about our choice until Aura was born, a decision I slightly regret, since it turns out my poor mother was convinced we had chosen Euphoria, the name I always swore I would use back in my high-school days. When Aura arrived, her name seemed to fit perfectly, and suddenly I heard it everywhere, though always with other connotations. While I was nursing her in the hospital, I saw an ad for the Saturn Aura for the first time. When Adam’s aunt and uncle came to visit only hours after she was born, his uncle handed us a clipping of the morning’s crossword puzzle, in which the clue for #12 Down was “an ineffable light” and the answer was “aura.”

That crossword clue was pretty much on the mark. Aura is very definitely an ineffable light, an indescribable force of delight in our lives. Her name? Well…it has its issues. People often think it must be spelled O-R-A; a few have asked, “Oh, Ora? As in the french fries, Ore Ida?” Aura herself, when in the throes of a rhyming game, often innocently yells out “Aura whora!” thereby shaving five years off her father’s life expectancy.

There is also the fact that I can no longer make fun of anyone else’s choice of baby name.  I mean, you name your kid Aura, you have to be very, very careful in the judgmental department. When I heard that actor Jason Lee had named his son Pilot Inspecktor, I merely nodded. And when I read that Nicolas Cage dubbed his son Kal-El in honor of Superman’s original name, I could only smile wordlessly. Glass houses and all that.

And there you have it. The world’s longest blog post on perhaps the world’s most inconsequential topic. Well, except to me, to whom Aura is anything but inconsequential. As a matter of fact, I think we may have hedged our bets a bit with the whole “goddess of breezes” thing. This one? She’s a full-on gust of wind.