Eleanor Irene

So many of you have requested the story of how we chose our baby's name, so I figured I'd oblige. I agree, names are important and the story of names can be very interesting.

In Germany our first few days, we stayed with Jurgen and Irene - family on Kelly's side. A week or so later, in the middle of our trip, we were staying in a small town in the middle of the Black Forest in southwestern Germany called Staufen, enjoying beer on the patio of our gasthaus overlooking a centuries-old vineyard and ruined ancient castle during sunset, recounting stories of our trip thus far. During our reminiscing, we talked about our first few days with Jurgen and Irene - how nice they were, how hospitable they were, how friendly, how loving, how warm, how easy-going - and how it seemed to us that they went totally out of their way to accommodate their out-of-town guests' every need, but that they never actually appeared to be bothered by us in the slightest. Then I recalled that in my childhood I knew a woman named Irene - my grandparents' friend - who was very similar. She was warm and cheerful and inviting and encouraging and never made me feel like I was a problem to her, even with my childish needs, wants, stories and ideas. So Kelly and I decided there, on this gorgeous German patio, that when we had a daughter, she would also have the name Irene - our way of passing on to her these lively and lovely traits of women we know who, each in their own way, touched us and made our lives better.

As we continued with the naming process months later, after finding out we were expecting and after finding out we were expecting a girl, we each made a list of names we liked independent of each other. Then we compared lists and made note of the names we both liked and made fun of the names on each others' lists we didn't like. From that, we came up with a joint list - and a pretty sizeable one at that. So, we still had to narrow it down. I wanted a strong-sounding name, preferably one that didn't end in the "a" or "e" sound like so many other girls' names (Alaina, Samantha, Amanda, Molly, Hallie, Maddie). Kelly was really pulling for Irish names, but really couldn't sell me on any. Finally, we came up with four or five favorites that we started trying out randomly in sentences whenever we were talking about the baby. Eventually, two names surfaced as favorites. After a few more weeks, we both settled on Eleanor. It just seemed to fit us best and seemed to flow best when we used it in conversation. And I should add too that long before this we'd decided that Irene sounded better as a middle name than a first name when paired with our last name.

And so, after agreeing on spelling, we decided on Eleanor Irene. We're pretty excited about our decision and are getting more used to it all the time. We've kicked around some boy names too, just in case, but it's been a pretty half-hearted endeavor. I think it's safe to say we're in love with our little girl already.