baby names

Throughout this pregnancy, we had occasionally asked Nicholas and Sophia what we should name the baby. Both of them usually run through the list of their friends' names and in the end, we decide that no one is moved by any of them and the discussion is tabled for another day.

Last year, Sophia received the book Olivia from her little friend Symmes. She read it for a while, then we moved on to other books for a while. Then a few weeks ago, she picked up the book again and wanted to read it over and over at bedtime. And the next time our discussion about naming the baby came up, she decided that her baby sister's name was Olivia (although when she says it, it sounds more like "Oh-lee-ya"). Olivia was actually a name that we had considered for Sophia (along with Naomi, Natalie, Clara, Claire, Anne, Lindsey, Malia, Alyssa...you can come up with a lot of names when you labor for 12+ hours). In Sophia's mind, the fact that her baby sister's name now MUST be Olivia is based on the simple fact that she told 3 people in the Singles Branch at church that that was what her sister's name was going to be. We like the name Olivia, and up until about three days ago, we decided (among other reasons) to name the baby Olivia because neither one of us wanted to be the one to have tell Sophia that we had named her sister something else. But then again, we feel pretty strongly about naming our kids after we actually see them. After all, Sophia was almost Naomi Alyssa and Nicholas became a Nicholas only after we saw him and realized that he looked like a Nicholas and nothing like any of the other names we had taken to the hospital with us (like Benjamin or Andrew and a couple of others). His middle name Allan is the same as Greg's...funky spelling and all.

My sister pointed out that if we name our baby Olivia, we would be naming her after a pig. My dad seems to be a bit bothered by that idea, too, when we were talking about it other other night. Anyway, I guess we'll just have to wait and see what she looks like.

Maybe she'll come home as Ethel or Bernice or something. Or not.