***If you are reading this, I am in a hospital SOMEWHERE screaming my ass off and attempting to shove a child out of my vagina. This is the second in a series of three posts that were all created several months ago in preparation for labor and delivery. I hope you enjoy them =) As soon as I am home from the hospital, I will pick up where I left off. Wish us luck!
If you are a girl, your middle name will be Anaïs. Your father and I agonized over this decision. We fell in love in France and so it seemed quite fitting that your middle name should be French, but, well, finding an elegant, PRONOUNCEABLE, feminine French name is sort of like finding a needle in an entire field of haystacks. Only you’ll find the needle a little more quickly. Then we found Anaïs, a name that means “grace,” a name that embodies passion and determination and strength and empowerment, a name that tells a story. Anaïs. A perfect name for you.
Now that we are in the final days of this pregnancy gig, I thought I would go ahead and let you know what other names made THE SHORT LIST (which was actually not short at all). Dear baby, if you are a girl, this is what you were not named.
Lena This is a family name. It means “light,” which is a lovely gift to wish upon anyone, and your father and I have both long adored this choice. Don’t be surprised if you have a little sister named Lena one day.
Eleanora To be honest, we considered several different forms of this name, including the French version Aliénor. We just thought that you might like a stranger to be able to spell your name at least once in your life.
Violet I fought valiantly to name you after a plant (Ivy, Rose, Iris, and Lily were some other contenders), but your father was not particularly interested. I suppose this makes sense, given that every plant that comes into our home dies a prolonged and pathetic death.
Iseult This is another family name, something that will likely make the short list again in the future. Your father and I love the story that this name carries with it, the tale of love and struggle and sacrifice that is found in every stanza. We also appreciate that this name (quite fittingly) means “she who is loved” or “she who is gazed upon.”
Amelia On this point, we also considered the French version Amélie. Both names mean “industrious,” which is an honorable characteristic. Sadly, Hollywood seems to have enjoyed these names as much as we did.
Joséphine This was a serious contender because: a) it easily transitions between French and English, b) we are both huge fans of the biblical story of Joseph, and c) it sounds beautiful. Chances are that if we named you Joséphine, we would have called you Josette.
Delilah This is one of your father’s favorites, which is fine. Your father has good taste or else he would not have married me, right? In the end, we just could not picture calling our daughter Delilah, though. What next: Jezebel?
I will publish the boys’ names tomorrow, but in the meantime:
What were some of the GIRL names that made (or are on) your short list?
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Well, two that are on your list made it to our daughter’s name (or close enough) - Eleanor Josephine.
We also considered Samantha (I like the idea of shortening to Sam, and yes I’m a Stargate dork), but couldn’t come up with a middle name that we agreed on that also sounded good.
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I’m not one to plan out baby names in the kind of ‘my child will be called..‘ sort of way but for some reason I already have this full name for a boy and girl in my head…
Girl:
Ariela Winter Rose
but I am in love with the name Pearl at the moment!Not sure where I got Ariela from (NOT THE LITTLE MERMAID), Winter is my mothers maiden name and Rose is my middle name and I think its beautiful and reminds me of my dad.
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I picture all of my little girls in white eyelet lace dresses having a tea party in my beautiful Victorian flower gardens. it is a beautiful picture that likely will never be true to form, but with that image in mind, these are a few of my favorite girls names (with either Ann or Marie in the middle):
Olivia Ann
Cecelia Marie
Fiona
Bella (Not Isabella, just Bella)
Beatrice (pronounced Bay-ah-treat-Say and shortened to Bay-Ah)
AmeliaLooking back on all of these, I think I like anything that ends with and “ahh”. Like a pretty *sigh*. Likely any little girls I have will turn into rowdy little hooligans like I was….keep wishing:)
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Annemiek (pronounced - Aah na meek): It is a Dutch name that I love (was working in The Netherlands at the time) which, unfortunately, would have been sure to induce teasing by mean little kids on the playground. Good thing I had a boy.
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My two favorites are:
Lillie Elizabeth (after my great-grandmother Billie Elizabeth)
Tessa KateNo one better steal these now. Haha.
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Since I am one of those that finds the sex of the baby before birth, I know I am having a second little girl. My husband also knows we are having another girl, but he keeps turning his nose up at all my beautiful suggestions. Like Maria’s comment ahead of me, I love the names Tess and Kate. My husband says Kate sounds like Cake and makes him hungry. Claire? Potentially a plump gal. Charlotte? The Harlot? It is a struggle. I think Abigail is leading but I might have to start campaigning for Stella, my great-grandmother’s name.
Can’t wait for more news!!!
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the suspense is killing me too! Can’t wait to see pictures, hear the details, hope all is well and you are basking in the glow.
My girl name was kaitlyn… too bad i had two boys! Dylan would have been another girl choice, but ended up my second boys name.
I really like girl names that can double as boy names… but not sure a little girl would like growing up with that.
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Amina, was our choice for our first child, buuuutttt, on the day of delivery our little “mina” had a small something between the legs that made us pick a more masculine name…. the OBGYN just said “OPPPS!“ So much for all the pink we had bought.
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Well I had three boys and good thing too, because neither time did I truly “love” the girl’s name that finally made the short list.
My oldest, James, was James from about 6 months on. As I was pushing him out they asked me what I’d call a girl. I shrugged and pulled “Nicole” out of the air.
For my second son we were actually hoping for a girl and fluctuated between Paris and Madeline…but the only name I truly loved was the boy name we had picked: Hayden.
Our third son, we knew he was a boy because the tech actually TOLD us this time, so he was Silas. Before that we had chosen “Halo” for a girl.
Now the names on our short list are Marie-Claire, Zoe Jane and Celeste…I’ve run out of boy names!
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Hope all is well with you and as much as I love that you saved up posts to “cover” for you being gone, I really just want you to come back and show us this baby and start posting “live” again…!
Wow. That sounded sorta clingy and desperate.
On to the question you posed: we only ever had one girl name picked out, and it’s the one we finally got to use with Goat #2, so I don’t have any short list “also-rans” for girls. If tomorrow’s post is what I suspect it will be, I do have some great unused boy names to comment on then :)
Be well and happy and come back soon! -
You know but story but I’ll tell it anyways ;) Before Brooklyn was even conceived we had a conversation that went like this:
-Me “Your middle name is Brooks. If we have a girl someday can we name her Brooklyn, for you and me?“Him- “Um…sure! But only if we can make her middle name Cheryle for my mom.“
Me- “Of course.“
So there you go, she was named before we even conceived her so we really didn’t consider other names. I KNEW she was girl before the scan gal told me so. Just in case we also thought about boys names. We liked Brandon James though I wasn’t too keen on the possibility of peope calling him “BJ.“ When I was single I used to day dream names…some of favorites which might make the short list someday:
Hayden Marie
Kylee Rose
Maddison Riley
Marshall Allen
IsiahCan’t wait to meet your little one!
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I was just a few weeks ahead of you. Had my “surprise” on the 4th of July. Quite shocked to have a GIRL! (I have two boys already)...
The short list for girl names:
Kira (which is her name—means the sparkle of stars in Japanese)
Kerenza (had been 1st choice for our first child, but was a boy—Cornish, means love)
Marlee (but then there was the dog movie)
Dara (have to admit partially cuz I think Dara Torres is an amazing woman to emulate)Short list for boys:
Reed (was final choice, my maiden name)
Talon (my hubby loved, too violent for me)
Teo (read a book “Love Walked In” with a great guy in it named Teo)Oh, and my name is French—but no one can pronounce it or spell it right! —Joelle (Jo-Elle)
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Glad to hear Ivy made the B list. :-) I love Violet. If we were to have another girl, it’d probably be Juniper or Hazel.
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I had a boy, but before we knew I thought these names were nice:
Lily
Olivia
Madeleine
MargotUnfortunately, all of the above names are extremely popular. If the next kiddo is a girl, I have to start from scratch.
P.S. I adore Lena, hope you don’t mind if I shelf that one in my brain :)
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We never even considered any first names other then Lillian (Lily) but middles names were all over the place. Grace was one of my favorites.
Beautiful name by the way.
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oh dear. Seriously? We are all DYING to know about the baby!!
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How do you pronounce that? I know it’s probably delightfully easy, but I just can’t figure it out.
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Sarah! I’m recovering from being mad at your for holdng out on us (no baby pictures, no baby/mom details). You are killing me! BUT, I can hold out no longer, because Anais is totally on my baby name list. I love unique, uber-femenine names! That’s the only one your getting from me, because I hold my names in my head until, well first, future babies are created, and then birthed.
Hope your new family is bonding and enjoying each other!
Megan -
Sarah, I will echo all the other comments…......What did you have, its killing us?!!!!!!
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Congratulations, Sarah!
We knew we were having a girl. My husband wanted to name our daughter after Jimmy Buffet’s kids—Savannah or Delaney.
We have an Eleanor Grace and call her Ellie. It’s fitting because she’s the most adorable, destructive, blue-eyed baby girl.
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I love Elanora—that was my grandmother’s middle name.
Dan and I had a hard time getting together on a girl’s name. We ended up with Allison, which is the only name that was in both of our top 3. I liked Avery and Riley a lot, but Dan didn’t at all. He liked Claudia, which would have been fine if I hadn’t had two friends with daughters under five named Claudia. Allison isn’t a family name—we actually named her after the Elvis Costello song, which I love. The other name I really liked was Sadie, which, unfortunately, was also after a song: “Sexy Sadie” by the Beatles.
Her middle name is Olivia. It just fit with Allison.
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Well, we knew we were finding out the sex of the baby. And, we also knew that we would have him / her named by the time we found out. We just wanted to give the baby an identity after trying SO long to bring a child into this world.
We are having a little girl, and daddy couldn’t be more pleased!
One name that made the final list:
Emerson PaigeThe name we chose in the end…and will be giving our little girl in the next couple of weeks when she arrives:
Finnley PiperHope you, daddy, and baby are all well!!! Can’t wait to hear what you had and how it all played out!
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So far we have only had boys. If any one of our boys would have been a girl, her name would have been Ayla (Clan of the Cave Bear)
I hope all is going well! :)
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Those are some wonderful names! Eleanor is one of my all-time favorite girls name (never thought about Eleanora, but I like it!). I love the nickname “Ellie.“
We knew we were having a boy at 20 weeks, so there wasn’t much time where we were discussing girls names. But I always liked Isabella and Elizabeth. And, of course, Eleanor :)
I can’t WAIT to hear what you named the baby!
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Iris
Loretta (nickname Etta)
Gemma
Lila
Clover -
I love Iseult! I tried so hard for Tristan for our boy’s name, but hubby was not into it.
Our second choice for our girl’s name was Caitlin. I loved Lily (or Lilianne or some form of that), but hubby nixed that one.
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We had or girls name picked out: Amaya-Nicole Raylen
I absolutely love ALL three.
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My go-to girl name was Lydia. For all 3 boyz.
Either Lydia Theresa (after Hubby’s great-grandmother)
Lydia Katherine (my grandmother and sister) or
Lydia Janelle (a combo of his mom Janet and my mom Ellen)
*sigh*
I swear if we ever get a dog, we’re naming it Lydia.
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Our daughter’s name is Annalie Sophia. Annalie is a Scandinavian variant of Hannah, meaning “grace.“ Sophia is Greek for “wisdom.“
Those names were both on our short list for first name, and when our daughter was born she just looked like an Annalie. We debated for the three days she was in the hospital (she was a preemie and had to stay a few extra days) what to use for a middle name. Finally Troy said, “Why not use Sophia as a middle name?“ And it was perfect, so we did.
Other names on the short list included Samantha (too popular), Rachel, Josephine (family name), Julia (family name), Isabelle (too popular), Hannah (too popular), and other names I don’t even remember anymore.
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My daughter is Elinor Crew and we call her Ellie.
Elinor came from Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility…Crew is my mother and grandmothers middle names.
Other girl names we considered (and I still adore) are Claire, Poppy and Maggie.
Can’t wait to hear if you had a boy or girl!
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We very quickly settled on the middle name of Jeanne. His mother’s middle name is Jeanne and my mother’s is Jean, so we thought it worked well.
I wanted Eleanor so badly, but Brian was not thrilled. I also wanted Tabitha. We both loved and agreed on Zoey, Cayleigh, Olivia, and Sophia. And of course, Hannah, which is what TK ended up with.
Don’t keep us in suspense any longer!
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I was petty sure I was pregnant with a girl, until last week when we were told our “girl” has a scrotum… ;) I had a few girl oriented names picked out:
Blythe
Elle
Juniper
January
Kaija
Only one boy name, though…so, that rogue scrotum made the choice much easier.:)
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I was just thinking that if I have a girl someday, I’d love to name her Peaches Genevieve—and she’d probably have a second middle name, Leta, which is a family name.
So it would probably be Peaches Leta Genevieve.
Husband will likely not let me get away with Peaches though :P
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Oh I am so excited! Can’t wait to see a picture! Good luck and enjoy all the quiet moments of the first few days of the baby’s life!
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Like you, choosing the middle name came first.
I decided on Helena Rose (both as middle names)
Eleanor, Delilah, and Amelia were all on my “short” list as well.
Also, Ramona, Leila, Honor, Gemma, Kizzie and about a million other names.
I am sure whatever name you decide on the name will be beautiful. I am digging your name style :)
Congrats!
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Mabel has also been one of my all time favorite girl names. Twin boy and girl: Mabel and Jasper!
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Forgive me but how do you pronounce the name? It looks lovely and I’m sure it’s just as lovely spoken.
If Aidan had been a girl the name would’ve been Madeline. There was no other name, just Madeline Mahealani (my mother’s Hawaiian name). If he had been a girl, she, would’ve had a kickass girl name. Though Aidan Kamaka’koa isn’t so bad either. ;o) My only issue is that when he reaches school age there are going to be LOADS of Aidans in the classroom. I should’ve named him Angus or Hamish. ;o)
By on July 23, 2009
I LOVED the name Paige, but then someone else I know had a baby and named her that! :(
I also love Sienna, but again, someone I know named their daughter that!
If I ever have another girl, she may be Paige or Sienna.
A couple other names I liked, but hubby didn’t are: Maya, Hope, Reese.
BTW, the suspense is killing me - can’t wait to ‘meet’ your little one!