Saturday, December 6, 2008

What's in a name?

Josh and I are getting closer to finalizing the names for the girlies. It is a much tougher task than anticipated - and I am already getting mixed reviews on our selections - but that definitely doesn't make me change my mind!
Fortunately, girls names seemed to be a little easier to pick than boy names. Before we knew they were girl, Josh and I couldn't really find any that either one of us was passionate about, or that both of us liked. My original thoughts for girls were Madelyn and Matilda. I want names that everyone has heard - but aren't popular, or what everyone's name is - so nothing in the top 100 most common names. I was thinking more traditional. Josh is definitely with me on this line of thinking for the names! Josh liked Madelyn and Matilda specifically as well, and even brought up that they would be our M & M's. Then, Josh's best friend Stephen mentioned the name Molly - and we decided we had to add that name to the list. Finally, I think while watching Sex and the City, the movie, I thought about Charlotte! Josh vetoed this one :-(. So, this left our short list to Molly, Matilda and Madelyn. Here is the low down on the names (of course I had to include popularity graphs...):

Molly - "Star of the Sea". Popularity Rank - 97th. The name has been around since the middle ages.
Matilda - "Strength in War;" This name is not in the top 1000 baby names for the past 8 years
Madelyn - "woman from Magdala" Popularity Rank - 104th
The next search was for middle names. I really like having the second name that mean something - like Grace, Rose, Belle, Faith, Joy etc... I also kind of wanted to incorporate something family into the names. I was discussing these names with my mother in law who mentioned that her Mom's middle name is Belle! Perfect! I ran this by Josh - and he said he liked the ring of Matilda Belle! Belle means beautiful in french. So, we have one name - Matilda Belle. Josh won't decide between Madelyn or Molly until we have a middle name. Something about hearing the whole name to be able to decide yada yada yada. One of thoughts is to spell Madelynn (ie with a second n), which would incorperate my mom's name. Then we could do which ever one we wanted for the middle name, and they would both still have family in their names. I also like Molly Ann. Ann is my middle name as well as one of my cousins. For some reason, Josh isn't a big fan of that combo (boooooo).

So in summary, Baby B (the littler one) will be Matilda Belle. Since the name means strength in war, and she has been/will be our little fighter, we thought Matilda was appropriate. Plus Belle starts with a B, and she is Baby B.
Baby A will be either Molly or Madelyn. I keep telling Josh we need to hurry up - otherwise we might start favoring one more than the other and ruin their whole lives...

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