Name Game

In mulling over baby names last night, I did what any highly obsessive, excessively Type A personality who is sick of poring over baby name lists would do: I started putting together a family tree. I've been meaning to do it for months, and had some preliminary information from my grandmother and my mother, so it was surprisingly easy. I made it back five generations in a few hours. In the course of doing so, I think I found the perfect middle name. It's a name that we both like, but think it's too popular to use as a first name. I've been wanting to give our daughter a middle name that had some history to it, that was a piece of me, and I think this one is perfect. It's the same letter as my (very old-fashioned and not very pretty) middle name. But, it's much prettier. The best part? It belongs to several different great-great-great grandmothers, so it has that historic connection. It just really feels right to me.

It was funny, because there is another name that we like as a first name. We were just talking about it yesterday, in fact. T was pretty high on it, even, until he discovered that its origins are from a country that he doesn't like (I know, the ridiculous discussions we have over names!). While researching the family tree, I discovered that this name was my great-great grandmother's first name! I thought that was pretty cool. I don't think I'll be able to persuade him to use it though, so the first name search still continues.