Sunday, March 18, 2012

What's My Name?

It's been a couple of weeks since we met our second daughter, but I'm still having trouble with her name. A couple of years ago, before we were even pregnant with Evie, Todd and I picked out our kids' names. All of them. (We're planning for 4 kids: 2 girls and 2 boys.) I've loved the name Elizabeth since I was in middle school, and so we planned on having our first daughter be Elizabeth, our second daughter be Evangeline, our first son be Christopher, and our second son be Benjamin. Well, when we were pregnant with Evie, I felt that our first daughter should be Evangeline instead, and her full name just clicked into place and feels right. This time around, Todd and I didn't discuss girl names because we already had the leftover one picked out: Elizabeth Claire Jacobs. I still love that name all together, but I'm having trouble finding the perfect cute nickname. Which is funny, because the plethora of nicknames that can be taken from the name Elizabeth was one of the first things I loved about it when I was younger.
While we were still choosing all of our kids' names, I started having dreams about them. I saw Elizabeth as a tiny little girl, and she looked like me as a kid: toddling around with blond curls and light eyes. I started calling her Ellie. I saw Evangeline as a dark-haired young lady getting married to her sweetheart, and I knew that her nickname should be Evie. When we found out we were having another girl, I just assumed that her nickname would be Ellie, like I've been calling her for 2 years, but apparently that isn't going to work out. "Evie" and "Ellie" sound too similar, especially if you're calling for them across the house. As Todd demonstrated for me, it sounds like "E-mph-ee!" and we'd just confuse ourselves and our little girls. I looked up a list of other nicknames to help me land on the perfect one, but wasn't super impressed with any of them. Todd told me that he's probably going to call her Lizzie, but I just can't bring myself to call my child something so uber-common as Lizzie or Beth; I want something somewhat unique and elegant, like her sister's name. So far, I've offered a couple of alternatives, but we aren't 100% happy with any of them, either. I asked Todd about Lilith as a nickname. I think it's a gorgeous name, and it would be funny to have an Evie and a Lilith in the same family. Todd thinks it's really pretty too. In fact, he thinks it would be fine as a first name, he just likes Elizabeth better. I've also asked him about Izzie, but it's still up in the air.
I guess I'm just waiting for the perfect fit to click into place like it did with Evie, but in the meantime, I still don't know what to call my little girl in casual conversation. Calling her Elizabeth seems so formal, so I find myself using phrases like "our younger daughter," "the little one," "this next baby," etc. Maybe I'll eventually settle onto Lilith or Izzie or even go back to Ellie, but for now the little one and I are happy and healthy and hoping that the right name comes before she does.

No comments:

Post a Comment