Monday, July 8, 2013

Birth Certificate: Naming a Person

Our baby girl had a first name long before we met her.

First day home.

As I mentioned in this post, we had a name picked out for a girl but not a boy. We came up with the name maybe even before we were married. I remember shortly after we got engaged, we were in a bar in Madison, Wisconsin and were talking names. And again when we were out to dinner in Stillwater, Minnesota. It seems that the conversations always happen when we get away from home. When we can daydream about the future.

Emaline is a song by Ben Folds. That is where we found the name. As you will hear in the song, her name is pronounced Emma-line. Line rhymes with fine or mine.

I love her name and it fits her well. I'm sure she will earn nicknames as she gets older but for now she's just my Emaline. 

Her middle name took us much longer. We filled out her birth certificate at the last possible moment and even then, were unsure. And when I say we, I really mean that I was not sure.

I thought I knew what her middle name would be months earlier. I had picked one that sounded pretty. But Nick wanted her name to mean something. He wanted family names. His Grandma Valley passed away in November and she meant the world to Nick. He had his heart set on Joann.

My Grandpa Rice passed away when I was 15. He was a poet and a builder and a man of great character. I had always planned to use his name. I thought it would be the middle name of a son but when Nick suggested otherwise, my heart latched onto Gardner.

And so she became:  

Emaline Joann Gardner Valley
Those are her arms inside sleeves that are much too big for her.