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M odern technology is great. We have fridges with internet access, cell phones with “Thong Song” ring-tones and wireless links between our running shoes and iPods. We can even shoot an intense cluster of soundwaves right through a woman’s body and capture a fuzzy black-and-white image of an unborn child.

Your average health care professional will say that the point of the ultrasound is to ensure that the baby appears healthy and is developing naturally. Everyone else in the world knows that the point of the ultrasound is to find out if it’s a boy or a girl. How else can grandparents-to-be know whether to buy piles of unnecessary identity-shaping toys covered in frilly princesses or manly cowboys?

We were looking forward to the ultrasound, but we weren’t really sure if we wanted to find out the sex in advance. There’s something kinda quaint in finding out on opening day, and besides, sometimes what they think is a penis is actually a tail or an old popsicle stick.

I think our biggest fear, besides any unforeseen problems with the baby’s health of course, was that we would find out it was a boy. It had nothing to do with the fact that boys often grow up to be loud and violent and smell bad and everything to do with the fact that we couldn’t find a decent boy’s name to save our lives.

We already had the perfect girl’s name. It came to us in a flash, a classic name that was elegant but not old fashioned, and as far as we could tell, no tabloid celebrity had used it and neither of us could recall hearing it screamed out across a mall food court. It was so perfect that we made it Top Secret, not even telling our parents, for fear that it would get out there and someone else would get to it first.

The boy’s name, however, was not so easy. Our pile of baby name books mocked us with abominations like Jaden and Rufus. We said no to Biblical names, no to trendy names, no to nature names and, above all, no to Dylan. I swear if I had a time machine, I wouldn’t go back to kill Hitler, I’d go back to stop Aaron Spelling from making Beverly Hills 90210. You know all those 10-year-old brats out there weren’t named after Dylan Thomas or the guy who wrote “Knocking on Heaven’s Door.” I can only hope those nu-Dylans don’t grow up to have foreheads as wrinkled as their Luke Perry namesake.

Neither of us had a fondness for any particular name, no traditional familial obligations and nothing that we even kinda liked seemed to suit either of our last names. My last name was particularly important to take into consideration. Obviously, Otto and Homer were out of the question. Perhaps we could forego a first name altogether and encourage our boy to become a biker or a professional wrestler.

The day came and the ultrasound technician shot an intense cluster of soundwaves right through my wife’s body and there on a tiny monitor was a fuzzy black-and-white image of our unborn child. While the technician wasn’t authorized to tell us if she saw anything of interest, our midwife could. The answer was right there, on a piece of paper sitting in her lap. How could we resist? She told us the result and my wife burst into tears. We had the perfect name for a perfect baby girl. But that really wouldn’t help us name our perfect baby boy.

I guess the only person in recorded history not to have this problem, if you are of the Christian persuasion, is the Virgin Mary. She was just minding her own business and then one day, Angels come down from Heaven to point out that a) she was pregnant; b) it was a boy; and, c) what a boy He is, the one and only Son of God. She didn’t have to worry about missed periods or peeing on a little paper strip, and on top of that, she didn’t even have to come up with a name. The Man in Charge already had something in mind.

I’m reasonably certain that my wife isn’t carrying an immaculate conception and I’m 100% sure that it isn’t a virgin birth. Still, it’s a shame that neither of us are of Spanish heritage, because Jesus is a pretty good name, although I suppose it might have a profound effect on our choice of profanities.