Why Ruby?

It could have been Stella, Butch or Nico. But the name -- which seems so perfectly suited by now -- was Ruby. Mai and I had talked a bit about names for the months before her birth, then made a 10-second call in the recovery room on January 20. We had wanted something that's easy to spell (so, ie, we weren't following the celebs' trend-setting decisions for names no one knows or can spell), we didn't want names that are TOO popular (Ruby is 87th in NYC, and out of the Top 100 across the US), or too tricky to pronounce (Lena could be 'LAYNA' or 'LINA'), and hopefully it'd be a name that carries a faint 19th-century, 'Little House on the Prairie' quality.

Just not Gertrude.

We didn't go with Ruby because of any rocks. Rubies -- the gemstones chiefly found in many parts of Asia (including Vietnam) and Africa -- are typically associated with being red, but can also be pinkish or purplish. The Burmese, which mine the world's best (some argue), describe the color as 'pigeon's blood.' The next time we back up over a pigeon in Brooklyn, we'll try to forward a sample.

That's interesting but NOT the reason we went with Ruby, and now that she's over five weeks old, it's time to spill the beans: we named Ruby after a bedbug-finding beagle, whose pal Pasha helps too, in New York. See Ruby the beagle's story in The New York Times here.