What's in a Baby Name?


In the last few months, I have seen my Facebook feed explode with pregnancy and birth announcements. I love seeing photos of the new babies, but one of my favorite parts is learning their names. The last three baby girls have had the most beautiful names: Dahlia, Elise, and Marlo.

Naming babies is really a strange thing, don't you think? You choose one name, but you could have chosen another, and your baby would still be the same sweet adorable baby, so if you are having trouble deciding, just pick any name, right? No way! It's a big deal. I even know someone who disliked their daughter's name so much that they had it changed after a year! Since Isaiah and I chose to wait until the very end of each pregnancy to discover the gender of our babies, we had to have a boy and a girl name picked out.

The first time around, we settled on Hunter James pretty easily. Isaiah's favorite author is Hunter S. Thompson, so when he suggested Hunter, I loved it immediately. Then, we chose James after my late father. For our girl name, we liked Paloma and Marisol, but not together and we couldn't figure out a middle name to go with either one. We arrived at the hospital armed with our perfect boy name but still unsure about the girl. Luckily, we got a boy!

This last time, we settled on Paloma very quickly. Marisol didn't even come up again, but we still didn't have a middle name to go with Paloma until I suggested Belle after Isaiah's sister, who's called Spring Belle. The boy name was much harder to come up with. I told Isaiah that we were probably having a girl since that's the only name we had ready, and last time the only name we had ready was a boy name. 

Anyway, these are some of the names one or both of us liked but weren't really sure: Xander, Geronimo, Joaquin, and Reza. We couldn't agree on any of those names, plus we put them to the ultimate test. We asked Hunter to pronounce them, and if he butchered it, that was a no-go. (e.g. Joaquin sounded like cocking.) Then, a few weeks before the baby was due, Isaiah suggested Felix. Yes! I thought, That's it! I didn't care that we actually knew a few people with that name already (our German friend Ralf's best friend, a blogger friend's son, and a friend's nephew). Then we agreed on Pietro for a middle name, after Isaiah's great grandfather. So it was between Paloma Belle and Felix Pietro, and Paloma won! 

How did you name your babies?

4 comments

  1. Awww!!! That makes me so happy! I love that you loved the name Felix as much as we do :) I would never want someone to not choose a certain name because someone else that they know already used it, so I am so happy that it wouldn't have stopped you guys :)
    I love the name you chose for your little girl <3
    It's funny, we had the exact same thing as you did with our pregnancies...first one we had no girl name really ready (we settled on one, but weren't excited about it). With the second pregnancy we had a hard time with a boy name!
    I still wont forgive you for the Hunter and Gatherer trick you played! ;)

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    1. Aww, Sabine, please forgive me -- I felt a little bad about it that's why I came clean so quickly! ;) A family friend lady brought it up the other day too. Haha!

      btw, I kind want to have another baby just so I can maybe have a boy and name him Felix. I am a little obsessed with that name now!

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  2. Geronimo!!!!! That is every kind of rad. You should be proud to have had that on your short list. :) xx

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    1. Aww, thanks! I really love the name Geronimo in Spanish, but I knew it would never be pronounced like that, and I wasn't crazy about kids making fun of him shouting Geronimo! and jumping off rocks and stuff, but that's actually something Isaiah loved about that name, so we couldn't agree on it. Oh well... we got our girl anyway!

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