Baby Girl Atkinson Has A Name
*****Warning: this is long and wordy! So if you just want the name, no story attached, jump to the photo ending!*****
Maybe you don't have this problem but I sure do. From the time I was dragging around baby dolls I was giving them my "all time favorite" baby names that I thought one day I would use.....until I was pregnant with Liam and realized I hated them....all of them.
So from the minute we picked Liam's name, Brian and I decided our children's names would require two things: a heritage name from a family member and a name with a meaning.
Example: when we chose Liam's name we wanted a name that had a meaning that would foreshadow his life. So we chose "Liam" meaning Strong and Brave. Everyday of his life he has shown this to be true of himself. We know this name was put on our hearts for a reason, and from the moment we found out about his vision we have noticed that he is completely these two things. Nothing, vision included, will defeat, slow, or hinder him- of this we are sure. (So when we call him LiamtheBrave we mean it!)
Liam's middle name, his inherited name, is "Robert" which is my father's first name (though he goes by Bobby). I could list a dozen reasons to why we picked my dad to name Liam after, but I would be rambling for a while so I will leave it at this- girls look up to their dads. (And so do the son-in-laws that get the permission to marry said daughter.)
Jump to present day.
From the moment we got pregnant for the fourth time, we just KNEW this baby would be a boy.
The only reason being this:
One day we sat in our kitchen discussing the chances of having a third miscarriage if we tried again to get pregnant. I remember telling Brian I wanted to wait until after Christmas to even discuss trying again. He jokingly said, "why? It would be a cool Christmas present." And I told him it would have to be a "gift from God" because I wasn't up for it. We laughed and joked about how funny that would be and then on a whim I googled baby name meanings meaning "gift from God" or "God's gift". Turned out the first one I found was Hebrew and I loved it! Better still, Brian loved it.
A few weeks later we were staring at our 4th positive pregnancy test, and two days before Christmas we were listening to our baby's heartbeat. Christmas baby announcement it was!
Skip forward a few short months- our announcement and shock that this was not a baby boy but a little girl. All I could think was, "BUT our name!!! It was perfect!"
And it still is.... Just not for this baby- which is why I'm not including it in this post ;)
After we wrapped our brains around this new information, we started to discuss girl names. Both of us came to the same conclusion: THIS baby, this GIRL baby, is still just that perfect meaning-"God's gift".
So we found Jane. It took some convincing because at first Brian hated it, but I kept on. We struggled to try and name her middle name after my sisters, but we came up with more problems than solutions.
So one day on my way to work, I pulled up a list of my family tree and zeroed in on the female names. I not only found that "Jane" was actually an inherited name, but I also found the name "Ella".
Mary-Ella, called Ella, was my Nana's grandmother. She was my dad's greatnana.
I called Brian and this is (give or take) our quick discussion on it:
Me: "did you know that Jane is our name meaning name and an inherited name? So we can technically pick whatever we like to go with it!"
Brian: "Cool but what goes good with it?"
Me: "Well, I found Ella.... I kinda like Jane Ella."
Silence.
Me: "Babe?"
Brian: "I hate it.... But I like Ella Jane. What does it mean?"
Quick google search....
Me: "You won't believe this... It means "all or completely/utterly".
Brian: "So if we use it as Ella Jane instead of Jane Ella, together her name would mean "Completely A gift from God"?"
And that was that. We both loved it and there was no other name it could possibly be. Two meaning names, two inherited names. The perfect combo for our little girl.
So (now that I've drug this out long enough) the secrets out! Our sweet daughter's name will be..........
