When we got pregnant with Charles we instantly started brainstorming names for boys and girls, and at the time the only tiny reason I would have liked a girl was because naming her seemed like an easier task. Naming a boy had some challenges but we seemed to like the same names for girls. But, Charles is Charles and we wouldn't have it any other way. Ironically though, when we found out about our little surprise we couldn't agree on a girls' name to save our lives. So, every bone in my body hoped we'd have a third boy.
Well, surprise again - it's a girl :) I can say that while we are both intimidated and scared and anxious, we are very, very excited. I think austin would even say he wouldn't change it if he could! But, that doesn't mean naming her was easy. We were kind of dead locked and really just lacking much motivation so we had to come up with a system. (Err, I had to come up with a system. Austin was fine waiting)
I would have bet money that no matter what system we came up with, her name would end up Elizabeth Loving. (Bet you can't guess where my vote was!) Elizabeth is the middle name of my cousin who has been one of my closest friends my entire life, it's classic and beautiful, and it just conveniently fell in line with our royal theme. But, we weren't in agreement so we came up with a method.
We each chose 6 girl names and wrote them on a paper. Then we each got to cross off one name from each other's list so we were left with 10 names. We actually only had 9 because Elizabeth was on both of our lists, so again I assumed that was the name we would end up with. Once we had 2 lists of 5 we each ranked both lists 1-5, 1 being our favorite and 5 being our least favorite. This quickly knocked the list down to 5 names because a lot of them were low on both scores. The top names, mathematically, were:
Mary
Elizabeth
Aurora
Samantha
And I can't remember #5. Notice nowhere on the list is Loretta, as neither of us had even uttered the name before. I said we should just sit on it awhile but Austin said 'well Mary wins why not Mary?' (It was conveniently #1 on his own list, mind you)
We had already agreed the middle name would either be Loving or Aurora, but were both pretty set on Loving, so he kept saying Mary Loving.
Well, Mary Loving was my grandmother which is awesome - but as days went by I felt a little guilty that of the 6 names we would give our kids, 4 would come from one side of my family and 1 would come from his. So while he kept saying Mary I just wasn't sure.
Then it occurred to me - what if we found out what his grabdmother's middle name was? She had just recently passed away and I thought maybe it'd be neat to have both names be a grabdmother's middle name. We asked his mom, because he wasn't sure, and when she told me I just loved it. I asked him what he thought of Loretta Loving and his eyes lit up. And the final judge: william instantly approved.
It's not a very common or traditional name, it's a little old fashioned and a little country (thanks to Loretta Lynn) but we both loved it the moment it came up which is how we knew it was what her name was meant to be.
So while our math didn't quite add up to a winner, it did get us there. No more than 4 weeks from yesterday we will be holding our baby girl, the baby we never knew we wanted but can't imagine not having. Loretta Loving.
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