What's in a Name?

Ashley's comment to Brynne's birthday blog got me thinking about how we decided on her name. If you're interested, then keep on reading...

It really starts back when I was a lifeguard in high school. Anyone who has been a lifeguard knows that you have to come up with something to think about or the hours can really drag. Well, for a while there I liked to think up names I liked for my future children. At one point I decided I'd have twins and name them Brin and Bren -- the first being a girl, and the second being a boy. Now I'm smarter and realize there's no way I'd do that to my poor kids, but the names sort of stuck with me.

(When Morgan was born, we had our own separate experience where we knew what her name would be [thanks, Ash]; therefore, we didn't have to do a heck of a lot of "brainstorming" on names.)

When I got pregnant with Brynne, we had a list of about 10 girls names we liked and finally decided on one boys name we could at least agree upon. In time, we narrowed the girls name list down to five names; and eventually to two that we really liked. Brynn was one of the names (no 'e'), but we had yet to come up with a middle name we liked to go with it.

The other name we were considering was Carlee Ann. Carle (pronounced like 'Carl') was Lee's grandma's maiden name. The extra 'e' was for "Lee". (Get it? A mix of the names.) The middle name was in honor of my mom -- Ann is her first name. We both really liked this name; however, I was hesitant to use it because I was still holding out for a boy at some point, and Carl was my favorite boys name. Now that we're not planning on having more children in this life, I sometimes find myself wishing we'd given Brynne that name after all. (It's a good thing we're not planning on having more kids, though, 'cause we'd be in real trouble if we had a boy -- Lee and I don't agree on boys names...)

So in the end Lee was pulling for Carlee, and I was pulling for Brynne. Lee finally gave in and said we could name her Brynne, but with two conditions. The first is that we add an 'e' to her name. Brynn is traditionally a male name, and he felt the 'e' would make it more feminine. The second condition was that we give her my middle name -- Elise. I was quick to agree to the conditions and there you have it -- Brynne Elise Roberts.

[As a side note...Lee ended up giving both girls nicknames, which is really a story in and of itself. But as far as Brynne is concerned, she knows she's really just Daddy's "Widgeon".] :)