For some people I know, it seems that naming their children comes easily. It's a name they've loved forever, it's a family name, it's just something that they knew would fit.
Other people are more indecisive. Their unborn children go unnamed most of the pregnancy, and the parents bring their top contenders into the delivery room. They want to see what their child "looks" like, meet them first - and then decide.
Some people ask/tell everyone they meet their child's name, or possible names. They ask opinions. Ask for suggestions. And everyone has an opinion :)
Here is a little backstory to how we came up with a name for little baby M!
1. I told my husband that I didn't want to discuss names with anyone else, as I didn't want anyone else influencing us or "naming" her. I'm weird like that I guess, but I wanted her name to be one that WE chose.
2. My whole life, I had been in love with the name Riley Jane. I was convinced that this would one day be my daughter's name. I was so fiercely protective of it, that every time a friend got pregnant, I would pray that they wouldn't choose MY name! But a funny thing happens to you when you get pregnant.... the things you thought you loved and thought you wanted, well they sometimes change. Now, as much as I still loved the name, it just didn't seem right. It was too predictable. I wanted to surprise people. I wanted a name for this baby, not a baby for the name we used to love.
3. We wanted something traditional, but still girlie. Something with a cute nickname, and that flowed well with her incredibly long Hawaiian middle name and our Irish/Scottish last name :) A name that had meaning, and was a name we could be proud to call our daughter.
It took awhile. She was nameless for the first five months. We sifted through baby name apps, made lists, paid attention to characters in books, TV shows and movies. Sometime in November, we cautiously made a choice, and decided to try it out for a few weeks. My husband loved the name, but it didn't feel right to me. I tried calling her it, referring to her as it and it just felt wrong somehow.
Then one day, I was driving home from work and listening to the radio. A song came on, and as I listened to the lyrics, I burst into tears. All of a sudden, at 5:15 on a Friday afternoon, her name came to me. And as soon as I knew it, I really knew it.
Keith got home that night, and I tearfully told him I had changed our daughter's name! He was a little confused at first as I was crying and laughing at the same time, and pretty soon he was laughing with me on how ridiculous this whole scene looked. Being the good man that he is, he of course was not going to tell his crying, emotional, pregnant wife "no"! To be fair, her name is a name that he actually suggested about 5 or 6 weeks prior, and while I liked it then, it didn't really stick out to me until that day.
I think that people will be pleasantly surprised by our choice. It's nothing fancy or crazy, and it's a name I'm sure everyone has heard before. But that's okay with me. Her name truly does fit, and means so much to us, and I cannot wait until she is born so that we can finally share it with the world!
*stay tuned for Part 2 after she is born!*
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