Their Names

One of the funnest parts of having babies was getting to choose my children's names. It's not always easy; there are a lot of names I like. I also wanted to have some kind of story or reason for each of my kids' names. As a young adult, I worked with a girl who came from a big family, and each kid had a really neat story behind their name, so I would always ask her to tell me the names of her siblings and how the names were chosen.

My kids all have stories behind their names, but they aren't as elaborate as my former co-worker's. Since I use pseudonyms for my children on this blog, I can't really tell you the full stories of their names, but I can tell you about their middle names!

Nicky's middle name is Brock.

I have a little brother named Brock who was my sidekick for most of his childhood. Scotty's grandpa's last name is Brock as well, so as we were trying to pick a middle name for Nicky, we decided to go with Brock - thereby, giving him a name that represented both our families. To this day, I have moments where I almost call Nicky "Brock," as if he's my little brother following me around.

Daisy's middle name is Cleora.

When I was pregnant with Daisy, we didn't find out what we were having, we showed up at the hospital with a list of names and didn't settle on one until right before we left to go home.

One of the middle names we were considering was Cleora - Scotty's grandma's name. Cleora died from leukemia when Scotty was about six. I always thought that I'd never met her, but then a few years into our marriage, it suddenly dawned on me that I had met her! When I was very little, I had a friend named Jessica. We went to preschool together, and her mom was my dance teacher. They moved away before we started kindergarten. Jessica happens to be Scotty's cousin. One day Scotty mentioned that his grandma used to have a pool in her backyard. For some reason, his grandparent's house had always seemed familiar to me, but when he described the pool, I finally realized that I had been there before! I had been swimming in that pool with Jessica! I had met Scotty's grandma!

Anyway, I always thought Cleora was a pretty name, and I considered it for a possible girl's middle name, but Scotty's cousin had recently had a daughter and named her Cleora, and I didn't want to encroach on the family name. We were 90% settled on a different middle name: Cecelia... which meant nothing to us. I just liked it. Then the night before we left the hospital with Daisy, I had a dream where I kept calling her Daisy Cleora. I realized that every time I said her name, Cleora came out instead of Cecelia. It was clear that she was meant to be named after Cleora.

Zoe's middle name is Lillian.

With Zoe, we again didn't find out what we were having, so we needed some time to finalize the name before we filled out the birth certificate paperwork. We were considering the names Kamryn or Tessa with Lillian as a backup. For sure, Lillian would be included in her name - we just weren't sure if it would be her first name or her middle name.

When Zoe was born, and we saw her squishy bulldog face (she was pretty beat up from being breech), she didn't look like a Kamryn or a Tessa. I felt like she needed a two-syllable name that ended in the "E" sound. Lillian would have worked - with Lilly for short. I spent a lot of time staring at her, trying to figure out what her name was. Scotty and I finally settled on Zoe Lillian.

Lillian was my great-grandmother, and I absolutely adored her! She passed away when I was 7 or 8, and I was really sad about it because I sincerely believed she was going to live forever. I've always wished my middle name had been Lillian, so I couldn't pass up the chance to name one of my daughters after my great-grandma.

Eva's middle name is Evalene.

 

I really hoped that Eva was going to be a boy. When Scotty and I caught an accidental glimpse of the ultrasound, we were pretty sure we'd both seen girl parts. It turns out that "possibly knowing" what you're having is a lot harder than "not knowing," so I had my doctor do a gender check at the next appointment. Indeed, we were having a girl.

I wasn't sad that we were having a girl, but I was sad that I would never get another boy.

But back to Eva...

(whose pseudonym was chosen for her middle name. It's "Evah," like, "Don't you evah do that again! Nevah evah!" but if you pronounce it "Eeva" that's okay. I don't expect you to keep my kids' fake names straight! I can hardly keep their real names straight!)

Eva's middle name came to us while joking about made-up names. I was telling Scotty we could name her after my grandparents, Evans and Marlene. Her middle name could be Marlans! We laughed, and then I said, "Or Evalene!" and well, Evalene was actually really pretty (according to me). I fell in love with it! So Evalene it is.

My grandpa died later that year, and one of my fondest memories of his last months was when I took Eva to his house to meet him and my grandma. My grandpa sat on the couch and held her, even though his body was hardly functional, and he had the sweetest look on his face.

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And there you have it - the stories of all my kids' middle names. They definitely aren't page-turners, but I'm glad that each child's name has some sort of meaning.

There are a lot of names I'm sad I never got to use. If we'd ever had a second boy, I wanted him to be named after Scotty. I would've loved to name a daughter after my grandma who passed away last year. I'd still love to have a Tessa. But I have to lay those names to rest because, even though I could name 30 more children, I can't raise any more.