Tweet The 2 scariest things about babywearing in my opinion are, getting a baby on and off your back. The dismount off the back is probably the thing that took me the longest to perfect when I first started babywearing. I didn’t have anyone teaching me, and all the videos I watched only showed getting [...]
Baby 3 Needs A Name
Ever since I was a little girl, I fantasized about my future grown-up life. I wasn’t much for dolls, but I did love to daydream about my future husband, my future children, our house, my career, what pets we would have. I loved to doodle “Mrs. So-and-so” on the inside covers of my notebooks in a boring class at school, but most of all, I loved to doodle baby names.
The first names I can remember falling in love with were Tomie and Owen. I was a very big reader from a very young age. I would invite friends over and then I’d want to read the whole time; my elementary school-aged friends never understood my perception of fun. Needless to say, I was heavily influenced by books. Tomie DePaola was the author of a book I liked called Pancakes for Breakfast. (I don’t even really like pancakes that much.) Owen was the main character in another book I loved, written by Kevin Henkes. Owen still remains one of my high-ranking favorites, in fact, if Zoelie had been a boy, she would have been Owen. Another literary inspired favorite was Chrysanthemum.
When I was 13 and 15, I became a big sister to my littlest brother, Daniel Tucker, and littlest sister, Hannah Joy. When my step-mom was pregnant, I spent hours scouring her baby name books and making mile-long lists to present to her. I remember loving Paxton and Peyton for Tucker, and Sydney and Zoey for Hannah. They were all declined, except that I helped with Hannah’s middle name choice. Zoey remained my favorite girl name for a long time afterwards.
Zoelie Joy
Then, five years later I got my chance. I was pregnant with my oldest. I bought several newer name books and once again I made a thousand lists. I doodled baby names on scrap paper while watching a movie or while having a long-distance phone date with Colin. I talked his ear off about names too many times to count. After I found out I was having a girl, Zooey was my favorite. I love the letter Z because my maiden name began with one and it felt sort of special. I had always liked Zoey, but discovered the spelling Zooey in a short story called Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger – once again, another literary inspiration. Colin despised the spelling. We dabbled with Charlotte, Evelyn, Elsie, Scarlett, Violet, Bettie and others. None felt right. Using Zoe or Zoey just felt too plain. Then, in a name book I ran across the name Zoelie. It said in the book that Zoelie was Greek for Eternal Life- which sealed the deal as it resonated deeply with my faith. It also combined Zoey and Lee, Lee being the middle name of my grandfather, my mother, and one of my 5 sisters. Zoelie Joy we named her, Joy for her middle because she brought me so much of it despite the pain of our circumstance. Joy is also after my grandmother, step grandmother, littlest sister, Colin’s sister, and Colin’s aunt.
Allister Colby
Allister was a lot less complicated. Before we knew her gender via ultrasound, we chose Allister; Allister Jude for a boy, Allister June for a girl. My sweetest and closest grandfather’s name is Alvin, so I liked the Al- beginning to remind me of him. Allister is also a pop punk band that Colin and I both loved as teens, when music was our entire world and nothing else mattered. It’s a tribute to the most carefree and passion filled time of our lives. After we discovered we were having our second girl, we knew Allister was still perfect. June, however, didn’t sit right with us. I told Colin he could have exclusive decision on her middle name, almost like a present from daddy to her. After she was born, he asked me if I liked Mae or Colby better. Mae was a name we both loved, and Colby was after Uncle Pino (one of the 7 uncles!). I told him to choose. As he was holding her for the first time, he whispered Allister Colby to her. Allister means Defender of Mankind. I adore that she has such a strong and virtuous name. Her nickname is Alli. Although I prefer Allie, we spelled it with four letters solely because it fits on Colin’s knuckles, opposite Zozo on his other hand. Oh, to be married to a tattoo artist. 
Now we are having another baby approximately six weeks from now. We have a boy name chosen, but lo and behold we are having our third daughter. We had a girl name, Aria, but it doesn’t feel right anymore. I love that our older girls have names that start with A and Z. I would love to have a name that starts with a different letter. I also love the idea of having a literary name (Z), a musical name (A) and then also an art inspired name. We just haven’t found it yet. Nothing fits right, nothing feels right. I am worried that we will hold her and then feel pressured to decide on something. I don’t want to make a last minute rash decision and be unhappy with it later.
Some people disagree that the meaning of a name is important, but it’s important to me and important to my faith system. I don’t want to choose a name that shapes her future self if it isn’t perfect for her. I also want a name that is somehow attached to a name of someone in one of our families- but as we have gone back and forth through our genealogies, nothing settles with both of us. I’m surprised Zoelie and Allister were named as smoothly as they were- this time we are not seeing eye to eye on name taste at all. And the clock is ticking!
How did you choose your children’s names? What characteristics in a name were important to you?
Was the decision between you and your significant other easy or challenging? I’d love to hear your stories!
I love that you considered the name Elsie! We named my daughter Elsiray and we call her Elsie
I’m sure a name will come to you guys eventually! Good luck!
Elsie was my great-grandmother’s name! I think it is so sweet. I would use it in a heartbeat if I could get my husband on board.
Thanks Sam!
I love your girls names!
our 3rd is Silas and he was pretty much named before we decided to even have him! I fell in love with his name from the show Weeds! 
. Middle names are all family names- my husbands, grandpas and my father-in-laws but they all flowed really well.
We have 3 boys and they all came fairly easily. Each one was named within 2 weeks of finding out they were boys. Of course we’d say it was probably going to be his name just in case we changed our mind.
Our oldest Rowan was a name we just found and loved immediately and knew that was it. In fact, with our 2nd I wondered how we would find another name as perfect as Rowan. 2nd is Eli. It was on our list but we decided for sure after the giants ( and Eli Manning) won the Super Bowl that year. And we aren’t big football fans but just really fell in love with the name
We are done having babies but I’m totally in love with Olive for a girl!
Travis and I were dating for 2 years when we started talking about marriage and kids. We attended camp one year and this kid went up to give his testimony and said ” hi my name is Titus” we both gasped turned and looked at each other and said yes we will have a boy and name him Titus. At our ultrasound the guy said it was a boy and Travis said yes I have a Titus. It’s always just fit
hang in there the right name will come!
My hubby and I had 3 vetoes for each others ideas. But thankfully I think we each only used one. So naming in our house was easy. Our first we kept the sex a surprise so we had two girl names and two boy names ready for when we met our baby. It was a boy. Samuel or Noah were the two he just didn’t look like a Noah so Samuel it is. For his middle we kept the tradition that his daddy has which is his middle is his dads first so Samuel’s middle is his daddy’s first name. For our daughter due any day now we had McKayla or Madilyn. We are going with Madilyn. McKayla was a twist on my mother in laws name kay. Her middle name is after mine, Marie. Samuel Brian and Madilyn Marie is our babies names.
My first thought was – where is your husband going to tattoo her name? You could make “Liz” out of the last two letters of “alli” and the first letter of “zozo” – except that Liz and all its different versions and variations is rather ubiquitous
I love your names though. I wanted to name my daughter Peyton until the tv series One Tree Hill came along and made the name seem unoriginal! My husband and I really struggled to find good names before our first came along (our marriage has some very different cultures merging together, and he wanted a traditional name from his language), but we settled on a few we loved so much that part of me thinks that my desire for more kids might be partly rooted in wanting to use some more of those great names!
Best of luck, I’m sure you’ll come up with something.
BUt seriously – where does girlie #3′s tattoo go?
You comment made me laugh! I keep asking him the same thing! I have no idea where he will put it- if we had a boy his name would be Rocket- and so he was going to get a rocket tattooed on his hand. Now there is no plan, whooops!
I agreed. Name selection is important. You don’t want to burden your kid with a bad name. We have twin girls, and we wanted original names. We looked for names that had means that “fit”. And we wanted family tie-in. We found pretty original names, with Gaelic roots. One means meadow and one means Island–because I’m kind of earthy. The family ties came with middle names. Both girls have family names. One has my maternal grandmother’s maiden name, and one has my hubs maternal grandmother’s name.
Good luck.
We had a hard time with a name. There were so many we loved. Hence our daughter has – long name. Genevieve Maelee Eliora Taylor. Genevieve we just liked, Maelee is after two very very important people in my life, Eliora is Hebrew for “my god is my light”. I have no idea what we will do for names for our next child! Lol.
I am the same way with names, they need to have a strong meaning behind them.
We named our daughter Ruby Diane. Family names are important to my husband and me as well. Ruby was his maternal grandmother’s name and is my birthstone. Diane is my mother’s middle name. We oftentimes refer to her as “our little gem” and she fits that description being that she is under the 5% for weight and height. She’s a pipsqueak. For a boys name we picked Ryder Lee. Both my husband and me ride motorcycles, which is where Ryder comes from and Lee is my Dad, brother, nephew and his brother and aunt’s middle name – so common is both our families.
My ex husband had our daughter named picked long before I was even pregnant. I let him choose because his last name is very ethnic and 13 letters long so she had to have a short first name. Good thing she was a girl because we didn’t have a boys name picked out. He named her Elise Michele. Fur Elise is also a song written by Beethoven so it was okay with me. The only thing is she must have at least 5 music boxes that play Fur Elise.
Sometimes people spend time deciding on the right name….its perfect and you love it. You child grows up and changes it lol….;)
*your
I always knew that I wanted my first son to be named after his father. When the time came to have that child I was even more in love with the idea because my fiancé named himself. He was adopted at 7 and when the judge asked him what he wanted his name to be (meaning his last name) he said “Josiah Jeremiah Davis”. I love that my son will always be my “tiny Josiah” and that his father literally chose the name. Now I just have to get him to agree to my name for our first daughter, Anastasia Marie. That ones gonna be a toughie lol.
I love this story! How sweet!
The first pet I ever owned was a cat and I named her Zooey soley for the book title and being that my name is Franny
This has nothing to do with naming my son, Sawyer, but I thought that was kinda neat we both chose names from that book title.
Franny, that is soooo cool! I think that is so neat too. High five for being awesome!
Thanks for all your stories everyone! And HUGE thanks for all the good luck wishes.. time is running out!
I will keep you updated on what we choose!
What about Lark?