The Name #2

For all of you who are reading this in a hurry and don't want the back story, I'll go ahead and spill. The name we decided on is Arden Grace Andrews. 

Now for those of you, like me, who are nosy and want to know more I'll tell you how we came up with the name in probably WAY too much detail. First of all it was so...stinkin'....hard this time. We had the same issues we had with naming Avery, which I wrote about here, along with many others.

First of all, I realized I just like boy names better. There are very few girl names I like. Which I guess is part of the reason I tend to lean toward unisex names (Avery's first and middle are unisex). I also love the idea of last names as first names. Almost all of the boy names I liked were "last names."

So anyway compounded with only liking a few names, Rustin didn't like those same few names, and I didn't like the few names he liked!

Another problem with naming kids is technology. First Facebook - before Facebook I would have no idea what the people I haven't talked to since high school named their kids, but now, because of it, I know what (seemingly) every person I have ever talked to in my life named their kids. So when you're trying to pick a unique name and you know three people who already used it (even if you're not in contact with them) it sort of ruins it. So we have that problem not only with my circle of friends, but also Rustin's.

Then there's google. For example, one of our names was Addison Andrews. Upon googling it, I found a porn star convicted of murder, a penthouse model, and a girl's Facebook profile which listed her job at some strip club.

So to say our choices were limited is an understatement. Oh and we weren't tied to the idea of sticking with an A, but that just happened to be what all the girl names we liked started with. (None of the boy names I liked started with an A, so if she would have been a boy we wouldn't have stuck with it.)

So on to Arden... The first time I heard the name was at church when the pastor used this article in his sermon. I just really liked the name. It was always my front runner.

I like it because it is unique and not too "girly" (like I said, I like unisex names). Apparently it was a popular boy name in the early 1900s. And I wish I could say that I was such a literature buff that I already knew this, but I found it out during research. In Shakespeare's play As You Like It, the setting is the Forest of Arden, which is rumored to be named after his mother - Mary Arden. (See - love last name first names.) It was also a real forest in England. I thought it would be cool to collect vintage copies of the book for her. So far I have one. If any of you garage-salers stumble across it, pick one up for me!

Ok as if I haven't rambled enough, I'll move on to the middle name which was almost as hard as the first name. I really wanted a classic, girly middle name to complement her first name. Rustin wanted it to be one syllable, and neither of us wanted it to start with an A. So in case you haven't looked into it I'll tell you, there's not that many girl names that are just one syllable.

Grace has always been my top pick and was what we were going between for Avery's middle name. Rustin liked it but then started hearing it "everywhere" (two people) and was worried it was too common. After months of trying to figure it out (the same agonizing way we did the first name) we finally landed on Grace. I love its' classic feel (I used to love Grace Kelly) and also, most importantly, the biblical significance of God's amazing grace.

We can't wait to meet you, Arden Grace!