The Name Game

I saw this on a friend's blog and thought it was a fun idea to record the stories behind each of our names.

And, with exactly three months from today until my due date (whoo hoo), I'm thinking a lot about baby girl names right now.

William Charles Bollard II

Obviously as a "II," Will was named after his father. However, I think it's interesting to note that both his maternal and paternal grandfathers had the first name Charles. When I first met Will in college he was Willie, which is the nickname he had been called from birth. He made a few small attempts to get his friends to call him Will, but it wasn't until we moved and he started law school that he had a clean slate to officially transition to Will. Imagine dating and marrying someone as Willie and then trying to remember to call him Will a year into your marriage! I still slip at home sometimes. Of course, he still has plenty of family members and friends to whom he will always be Willie to.

Audra Elizabeth Rose

My mother babysat a little girl named Audra when she was in junior high and fell in love with the name. I don't think my father ever really had a say in the matter (however, my Dad is on record in the video at the hospital saying that if I was a boy I would be named Eric, after Eric Hayden the Olympic Speed Skater). As an adult I appreciate having a slightly unusual name, although growing up I wished that I had a name like "Lindsay" or "Jenny" so that I could buy those pencils and mini license plates that have kids names pre-printed on them! And while I think my name is fairly easy to say and spell, I will forever be telling people that it's AudrA, not Audrey or Aubrey or Andrea or Aubra . . . (I've heard it all!).

Ethan William

While pregnant with Ethan I was visiting my Mom's ward and they announced that a family had just welcomed a baby boy named Ethan. Instantly the name stuck in my head and I loved it. But I also really liked two other names, Noah and Drew, so we decided we'd wait and see what he looked like to us after he was born. Moments after delivery we ruled out Noah, because it was obvious that this baby was a brunette and Noah was a blond-haired-only name for me. However, we really struggled between Ethan and Drew. Our family and the nurses kept asking us if we'd made a decision and by later that day I was starting to feel a little stressed out about the decision. That's when I decided that the whole "wait and see what the baby looks like" idea was overrated. Later that night we finally settled on Ethan and I've never regretted it, even when I found out later that it was the #2 most common name for his birth year (whoops!). His middle name was after his Dad and his Grandpa, and a nod to family history since we didn't carry on with a "III."

Luke Randall

With Luke's arrival so close to Ethan's it was a little tricky to re-visit boy names. My first inclination was to pick back up with Noah or Drew, but Will declared those "left-over" names and we decided to start fresh. During my five months of bedrest during this pregnancy, I had watched six seasons of Gilmore Girls, in which one of the main characters is named Luke. While I did not intentionally have any desire to name our child after a TV character, I think this is how the name initially got in my head. It seemed to feel right to Will and I instantly. I remember we decided for sure that this baby's name would be Luke when we were driving to a restaurant for Will's birthday in July. We never wavered in our decision after that and I liked being able to instantly call him Luke at the hospital. His middle name Randall is my father's name and we liked how it sounded with Luke (I remember my Dad saying it sounded like a good, strong baseball player's name).

If anyone wants to leave suggestions for a girl name, here's my two criteria:

it has to be recognizably feminine

it has to be a "stand-alone" name like our other two (meaning it can't be shortened into a nickname)

Give me your best ideas!