South Florida couple using March Madness to help name new daughter

A South Florida couple expecting their first baby is letting March Madness choose their daughter's name.

High school sweethearts John and Maria Ruiz fell in love with each other – and basketball. 

"When she went away to college to go to (University of North Carolina), obviously a really big basketball school, her love for the sport grew as well and so we kind of bonded over that," John said. 

They found out in November they were expecting their first baby, a girl. 

"When you find out you're pregnant, you have this list of potential names that you start building out, right?" John said. "So, as the list grew, it was already perfect for, like, setting it up this way with the bracket."

He's referring to the massive bracket they set up on their living room wall with the 64 teams playing in the NCAA tournament. Next to each school, is one name option. The higher the team is ranked, the higher the name preference. 

"The top, top name up here is Duke," John said. "Overall, one seed, is Sophia. That is one of the preferred names. They were going against 16 seed, Sienna, which we just gave them the name of their school, Sienna. Figured that worked out perfectly."

As Carolina fans, it was not easy assigning their top name choice, Sophia, to their rival, Duke.

"For her to (potentially) be named after a team that we do not like is going to be very interesting for her," John said. "If she grows up being a fan of them because of it, that's on us, but we're fully willing to accept that."

They're willing to accept any of the names. 

"Craziest name on here, I would say, is assigned to Villanova, which is an eight seed, so not so low," John said. "That name is Ffion. My friend went to Villanova, and he lives in Wales, and Ffion is a very popular girl's name in Wales."

If you ask CBS News Miami's Morgan Rynor, who met the couple, it's not the craziest name on the bracket. 

"Here we got number one seed, Valentina, so again, preferred name, going up against Khaleesi," John said. "Game of Thrones fans, you might recognize that name."

Maternity Madness, as their friends and family call it, has them invested. They've set up multiple TVs in the living room to watch multiple games at once. 

For the University of Miami fans, that name would have been Casey. 

For the University of Florida, it would have been Olivia. 

"Princess is probably a pretty crazy one, they're playing the Florida Gators," John said. "So hopefully Olivia takes that one and Princess does not, does not advance."

If you want to follow along on their journey to naming their baby girl here are their Instagram handles: @Johnruiz77 and @Mariaandruiz_