Have you ever wondered where your name comes from? Have you ever asked your parents why they named you that, or what you'd have been called had you been the opposite sex?
I am fascinated by names. As you know my name is Haylie, I asked my mother about her choice, I know I was named after the famous actress of the sixties Hayley Mills, and the spelling of it was because I have an older sister called Natalie and its cute that we match.
Haylie, or more commonly Hayley means Hay Meadow, and falls into the flower category of names. There were a lot of girls called Hayley when I was growing up so I was glad that I was a little different with the spelling. Now middle names, this is where we can have a good laugh. I have two middle names, the first of which is Susan, after my mother, which is lovely, and then we have Alvis. Yes Alvis. My middle name is Alvis. A lot of people jump straight to the conclusion that my parents may have been cruel enough to name me after a man, but no I was given the name from a long line of family members who were originally named after a car. How classy, this car how ever was like a Rolls-Royce come Aston Martin so I have no qualms there. As much as I hated this growing up, I love is now, can't say I've met anyone outside my family with it!
Choosing a name for your child is hard. I always pictured 3 little boys in my head and picked boys names accordingly. We did However pick girls names too, just in case. We also decided to give each of our children 2 middle names as we both have these.
Jacob was always going to be Jacob. It was a name that both I and Antony fell in love with very early on in our relationship. We love biblical names, especially boys names, as they are good strong names for boys to carry them into manhood. So when we found out we were having a boy we decided on Jacob Antony Terry. Jacob is a Hebrew name which means in Hebrew "to follow" referencing Jacobs birth in the bible, when he grabbed the heel of his twin brother Esau. Funny really as Jacob followed noone, he was our first. Antony after my husband, obviously, and Terry after my husbands grandfather, who passed away a few years previously. If Jacob would have been a girl his name would have been Esme. We loved this name as it was unusual and pretty. People were convinced I got both names from the Twilight Series but as my dear friend Louise can vouch after many failed attempts to get me to watch it, I had no idea about it. I will say since watching the films I do love them.
I don't know how you can be an Eli, but that's exactly right for my boy. No other name on this planet would be right. Again when we found out we were having a boy we decided on the name Eli Joseph Jude. Eli is another Hebrew name which means "ascend; my God." This really is a perfect name for my middle baby. Joseph is my fathers middle name, and Jude is just a boys name I really like, also referenced in the bible. Elis name is the most heavily biblical name of all 3 of my children. If Eli would have been a girl his name would have been Indi. I love this name. It more than likely would have been Indigo, but I think it would have been Indi as that's all is have called her. We were going to call Eli Elias, which I love, but as I knew all he'd be called was Eli I didn't see the point. Definitely was the right decision.
Now for little miss. To be honest, I never thought id have a girl. As soon as I found out I was pregnant I'd decided my little boy would be called Isaac Patrick Gray. My grandfather had recently passed away and his name was Patrick, I knew how happy this would make him, Gray was an affectionate term used for Ants grandad, Graham, or gramps as we call him. So can you imagine what I felt when I found out I was growing a pink one? Excitement, elation, delight to name a few. As mentioned in a previous post we had a tricky time just before we had our daughter so when we discussed names Hope seemed like the perfect choice. We named her Hope Natalie Kim. Hope as name is pretty self explanatory. She is my little bundle of Hope. The word popped up so much before we found out what we were having that when we were told she was a girl, Hope was the only choice. Natalie as explained before is my sisters name, and Kim is Antonys mothers name. My sister had already taken a lot of the family names so I kind of worked around her.
You don't realise the responsibility in picking a name until you have children of your own, makes you not be so hard on your parents for calling you Alvis.
What's the meaning of your name? How did you choose your child's name?
H xxx
