What do you guys think of the name Lyra (lye-rah)? To me it has connotations of a lyre, that little Greek harp that you see angels playing on clouds (like that really happens, ha!), and of the word “lyrical,” like musical, poetic, graceful.

The other day Daughter said she’d been brainstorming girl names. I’d wanted Isabella since, like, elementary school, but thanks to the smashing success of the “Twilight” series, my Isabella will be one of 5 Bellas in every class growing up. Plus, my cousin Diana and her hubby Doug named their adorable little girl Elizabeth, and are calling her Elle for short. My Chinese-speaking relatives would have a hard time distinguishing “Elizabeth” from “Isabella,” and “Elle” and “Bell” would be too close, too. I don’t want to be accused of copying. Anyway, Daughter suggested Lilah. At first I immediately thought of the evil villainess Lila (Lilah?) from the WB series “Angel,” and didn’t like it. But we discussed it some more and I thought maybe changing the spelling to Lylah would make it prettier. Cuz you can do the fancy script “L” and trail it into the following long “y.” It’s potentially a pretty name. We ran it by Mr. W. He immediately said he didn’t like it. Why? “That’s that girl in ‘Angel.’ She’s a bitch!”

So I was sitting there just now, and suddenly remembered a very pretty girl I’d met once or twice in high school named Lyra. She was nice, funny and smart, too. AND I’d always liked her name.

Maybe I’ll have a Riley and a Lyra, which is cool in conjunction, too, cuz it’s almost like just switching the consonant sounds around.