The Name Game.

The other day Elli asked me why we named her Elli. We've had this discussion before. I told her again that we thought it would be nice to give her a family name. So we named her Elliott Grace. Elliott, after her grandmothers maiden name on Kris's side, and Grace, after her great-grandmother on Don's side. We knew we would shorten Elliott to either Elli or Elle. But we also thought we would reserve picking the main name until we met Elli.  If she was full of spunk and energy we would call her Elli.  If she was more reserved and quiet we would call her Grace.  She is definitely an Elli.

She asked if we thought about any other names. I remembered that I had a list in a diary that I kept about our whole adoption journey and trip to China. We looked in the back of the book and sure enough, there was a list of names. She thought this was the coolest thing ever.

We've actually had many discussions with her about her name. A few years ago some kids told Elli she had a boys name. This did not make her happy. She is a girly girl. She stormed home demanding to know if this was true.  And was quite upset when we told her there were probably more boy Elliott's than girls but quite a few have the name now too. I told her my name, Kris, is also a name for boys. Of course my full name is Kristin, which is much more girly. Anyway, this helped her a lot.

So I found it interesting the other day to read an article in SF Gate about weird baby names. I laughed out loud at some of them.  Can you imagine going through life as Sparrow Madden, Apple, Audio Science, Moxie Crimefighter, Rocket Rodriguez, Sage MoonBlood or Tu Morrow? Her mom is Debbon Ayer. Ay yay yay. Elli is nuthin' compared to these beauties!

A few years ago I was in the airport with my client and we got the sales report emailed to us from a new person in accounting. Her name was Jingli Dong. I just about died laughing. Seriously I did. I could not stop laughing. I know that's mean. But the more I looked at the name the harder it made me laugh. Bad, bad, bad. For months I would have an email in my inbox at 6am from Jingli Dong. It still makes me giggle a little.

Don just told me there was a kid in his elementary school named Frances with a dead arm. I'm going to H.E. double hockey sticks because I cannot stop laughing.  Oh, sorry, I had a good upbringing, I promise.

It's hard picking a name. You don't want your child to be made fun of or laughed at. You want it to be just the perfect match for your little bundle. Elli said she wants to name her first baby Clementine. Hmmmm. That could be bad. Real bad. We'll see if she changes her mind.