what's in a name

I'm not the type to have romantic aspects of my life dreamed up in advance. Not once did I picture how my marriage proposal might go, and I didn't have any preconceived ideas about wedding day details. I was definitely not the nine-year-old planning her wedding with a pillowcase draped over her head like a veil.

In the same way, I hadn't really given much thought as to what my future children's names might be -- at least not until I actually had to start thinking about such things.

A few months ago, Joey told me that we had to start looking at names and narrowing down our choices. I was hesitant -- this is someone's name, something that they're stick with for life! We had a relatively simple time choosing a few names each for a boy and a girl, compiling nice little lists fairly quickly to sit on and pare down once the time got a bit nearer.

I looked at those lists of names only a handful of times over the last months of my pregnancy, only really giving them serious attention around week 37. I knew the baby could come pretty much any day and we wouldn't be at all prepared to give it a name! We sat down again with our lists, intending to narrow down our choices to just a few boy and a few girl names. We were able to get the boy list down from seven or eight to four names that we really liked. The girl list, on the other hand, went from five names to eight.

We told no one any of our choices [and still aren't sharing any of the runners up, in case we want to use them with subsequent children], and didn't even have any one name in mind for either a boy or a girl, knowing we would need to see our baby to really know what the name would be.

After our girl was born, we took a bit of time before our families arrived to sit down with that darn list of girl names and see what suited the brand new face we couldn't help but get lost in. Our eyes traveled down the original five names, finding none fit our little girl, and each of us, separately, decided on a name that I had put down, a name that Joey didn't even like when we came across it.

Rowan. An old Irish name meaning "little red one," we thought it was the perfect blend of old and uncommon, without being too weird or old-lady-ish.

Rowan's middle name took a bit longer to find -- we wanted something classy, more traditional, and it had to be a girl's name, not anything unisex. We didn't want "Rowan" to sound like a trendy name, we like that it's an old name, so we wanted something suited to it in that way. She didn't have a middle name until the evening of her second day, when the baby and I were alone in our hospital room.

Eleanor. Very much a girl's name, classy, traditional, and flows well with her first name.

It still feels strange to have chosen a name for someone, especially someone we had known for only a few hours before making such a huge decision. I still have moments when I doubt our choice, not because I don't love the name, but more likely because it's such a big, weighty thing to do, picking a name that will forever be tied to someone as important to us as our daughter.