What's in a name?

Amanda at My Very Own Modern Family is having a link up on her blog today and I am excited to tag along for the ride. :)

I wanted to write about how we decided on the names of our children.

Maya Catherine. My oldest.♥

My Grandma Catherine passed away when I was 13 years old. I loved my Grandma. She was such a special lady; kind, considerate, loving, gentle, soft spoken, funny, witty and a faithful Christian woman. She was everything I always wanted to be. I had known for years that if I ever had a daughter that I wanted to name her after my grandma. 

One evening, shortly after Todd and I had been married for just a short time, we were watching a movie on the couch in our living room. We were living in our first little house that we had bought, feeling all grown up and married and stuff . (The movie was Kuffs with Christian Slater.) In the movie, his girlfriend's name was Maya. As soon as I heard her name I said that I loved the name. I had never heard it before and I remember waiting until the end of the movie and watching the credits roll and pausing it to catch the spelling: Maya. Right then, I knew our future daughter would be named Maya Catherine.

When I was pregnant with Maya, we didn't want to find out if we were having a boy or girl so we had to be prepared for either. A girl was going to be Maya Catherine and a boy would be Hayden James (Todd's first name is actually James, after his father, but he goes by his middle name, Todd). 

Both my parents and Todd's parents did NOT like the name Maya. We were young and impressionable so we started searching for another name. I found Hannah. Hannah Catherine. I liked it well enough, but I didn't love it. We were debating back and forth but hadn't made a final decision. And honestly, I knew we were going to have a boy this time so I wasn't too focused on the issue.

Finally, near the end of my pregnancy I finally said to Todd, "You know, we are the ones having a baby. I am the one that's been carrying this child for months. I'm the one that's been sick (I vomited daily for months on end), I'm the one feeling the pain and physical pressure of pregnancy. WE are going to name our baby whatever we want and our families will just have to learn to like it! If we have a girl, we are going to name her Maya."

When they told us in the delivery room that we had a GIRL (I was surprised!), they asked her name, I remember proudly saying, "Maya Catherine. Her name is Maya Catherine."

It was perfect. And it is perfect. And now, both of our families say they can't imagine her being named anything different.

See, I knew what I was talkin' bout! ;)

After a very long labor, Maya was born with some complications and I was only able to hold her for a short time before she was whisked away and quickly transferred to another hospital, 45 minutes away. She was fine and able to come home 5 days later. It's a long story and maybe one I will share at another time.

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Evan James. My youngest.♥

Evan was born exactly 3 weeks before Maya's 4th birthday.

In the beginning of my pregnancy I just knew I was having another girl. I had no doubt. None. 

I remember walking into the clinic the day of our ultrasound. I was exactly 20 weeks and we planned to find out the sex of the baby this time. Todd and I laughed as we walked through the doors and I said, "I don't need an ultrasound to tell me I'm having another girl!" 

Her name was going to be Emily xxxx (something?) We hadn't decided. Maybe Michele (my middle name) or maybe Maeschele (my middle name with an unusual spelling; I went to high school with a girl named Maeschele and I always thought the spelling was beautiful.)

Maya (who was 3 years old) was also certain she was going to have a baby sister. And she wanted to name her baby sister Princess Aurora. :) (You know... Sleeping Beauty.) When someone would ask about the baby she would so sweetly say, "I'm having a baby sister and we're going to name her Princess Aurora." 

We had the ultrasound and immediately our baby, who was not the least bit shy, positioned themselves in a way that we could see their private places as clear as the sun in the sky. 

The technician pointed to the screen, "See that? It's a boy."

Ummm..... Surprise!!! 

So, obviously in this case I did not know what I was talkin' bout...

I started laughing so hard I had tears rolling down my face! I wasn't at all disappointed. I was just very, very surprised! I had just been so sure it was a girl!

We hadn't even considered a name for a baby boy. Not a single name. Of course, we knew we would still use James as a middle name but we had no idea for a boy name. Hayden (the boy name we had picked when I was pregnant with Maya) didn't feel right for this baby.

We came home and told Maya that we were not having a girl after all and she was going to be a big sister to a baby brother! :)

She cried. She was so, so sad. She said, "I don't want a bwother. I want a sister." I was hugging her on my lap as she cried on my shoulder and she sweetly looked at me with crocodile tears in her eyes and said, "Can we still name him Princess Aurora?"

I said, "We'll see." :)

It took awhile for her to accept the idea that we were having a boy but she was a sweet little thing and she grew accustomed to it over time.

We had a really hard time picking out a name. I scoured through my baby name book over and over and over and over and found nothing that seemed to fit. This was a book that had a meaning written along with the name and I turned to the meanings to try to help me decide. Still nothing. Finally, I decided I wanted to stick with the first name beginning with the letter E, like the name Emily we had picked for a girl. The E just felt right.

I must have read through the E names 100 times. I found nothing. So I bought ANOTHER book (remember, this was before the internet was in everyone's homes, people! Books were all we had back in those pre-historic days!). I read through the E names in my new book. Found nothing. Then I read through the whole book. Found nothing.

I went back to the original book I'd had since I was pregnant with Maya and looked through the E names again. But this time, the name Evan almost jumped off the page. I ran into the next room where Todd was and said, "What do you think of Evan?! Evan James?!" 

And that's how Evan James came to be. And it fits him like a glove. :) 

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This was really fun to write this story! If you have a name story, please share it on your blog and link up with Amanda. Be sure to leave a comment letting me know you did it so I can be sure to check out your post. It doesn't have to be your child. It can be your pet, your name, a friend or family member's name, anything with  a name is fair game!

Hope you're having a great week!