The name game

A few of you (okay, actually exactly 2 of you) asked about if we will be sharing names now that we know we are having a little girl (I still can't believe this most days!). We have 2 names at the top of our list, each with their own middle name. Our thought right now is to keep the names secret (I feel like a third grader saying that! ha!) until the birth. Here are our reasons:

1. We think we will narrow it to a favorite before January but wait to see her face before making anything official. We don't want people to say, "Hey, you said you were going to name her ________, not ________!" If we change our minds.

2. Being a teacher, I already have pretty strong opinions about many names. I'm going to be honest here, there are a few names I would NEVER consider due to the experiences I have had with some rather mean children. I am not about to name my daughter anything close to the biggest bully in our school (who happens to be a fourth grade girl!), for example. So, we don't want other people's opinions on the names we like on top of opinions we already hold. We really don't want to hear, "Oh, I knew a girl named Henrietta and she was just insufferable" if we want to name our daughter Henrietta. We figure that after people see our baby and hear her name, our daughter will be the one they remember, not the insufferable Henrietta of their past.

3. Since we have taken the mystery out of whether our little one is a boy or a girl, we want to have something to make an announcement about when she joins us in January. Of course the day, the time, and her size are all a mystery, but we are excited to share her name after it is given.

Here is some information about the names at the top of our list:

I thought of one of the names (first and middle) when I was in high school. After we got married, during a conversation about future children, I told my husband that I love this name for a little girl! He loved it, too, and now I think he feels more attached to it than I do! The first name is one that I have always just liked. It is an older, more classic name but is not too common (at least not around here).  However, we know someone (a friend of my sister's) who named a daughter this 3 years ago. The middle name is after my bff and is a pretty common middle name for girls right now.

The second name is a family name. It was my great-great-grandmother's middle name and my great-great-great-grandmother's first name. It has not been used in our family since. This name has special meaning to me because my grandma called me, out of the blue, at the beginning of the week that I ended up getting pregnant and told me that she had been praying for us and talking to her grandmother (so, my great-great-grandmother) and was told that this was the month for us, so "spend some time with your husband this week if possible." This is still so amazing to me and I know it sounds crazy to write, but my grandmother is very wise and she just seems to know things that the rest of us don't!

So, as the story goes, we conceived sometime that week, after almost 2 years of trying! When we told my grandma that I am pregnant, she said, "I TOLD you! I KNEW it!" and then she said that she thought it was a little girl. The meaning of the name seems perfect for the situation we have found ourselves in and I think my grandma here on earth and my great-great-grandma up there in heaven were both looking out for us. Also, my great-great-grandma was a teacher (she taught in a one room school house in North Dakota working with the children of French immigrants) and so am I (Art) and my grandma says that I remind her of herself and my great-great-grandma as well. Did any of that make sense? It is easier to say in a conversation than to type in a post, I guess :) The middle name is just one that I like and that I think sounds beautiful with the first name. My husband likes this first name and middle name, but thinks maybe we should use my bff's name as the middle so the whole name has important meaning to us.

Here is a "yearbook" from my great-great-grandmother's school back in 1913! My grandma gave it to me 5 years ago when I got my first teaching job and told me that she wanted me to have it because I am the only person in our family who has become a teacher since her grandmother and because I remind her so much of my great-great-grandmother:

And, no, the name is not Murray! That was my great-great-grandmother's last name after she married!

That is where we sit with names!