I know I’ve mentioned a few times before, and most recently during Madelyn’s birth story, that Craig and I wish we had chosen a different name for our second child. I’ve gotten many comments asking why we feel that way, if we’ve ever talked about changing her name or what name do we wish we had chosen instead.
Well, today’s your lucky day, folks; the name story will be cloaked in mystery no more!
But before I get into the answers to those questions, I need to provide a few background points:
1. We both agreed that we were going to name a baby how we planned to refer to them. This rule is more Craig than me, but I agreed to it just the same.
2. Any name given has to be appropriate whether the child is 4 or 40.
3. We both believe in meeting the baby before assigning its moniker.
4. We did not find out the gender ahead of time with either pregnancy.
5. We were sure Madelyn Rose was a boy.
When we had Kate, we headed to the hospital with 2 boy names and 2 girl names. It took the 48 hours that we were there to decide which girl name to give her, but we were – and have always been – confident in our decision. She is *indubitably* a Kate!
When we were pregnant with Maddie, we both still really liked our 2 “leftover” boy names from Kate’s pregnancy. We tried and tried to come up with some girl names that we both loved, but we did not see eye to eye.
We did create a list of 4 or 5 contenders, and we decided that if this boy baby was actually a girl, we’d just figure it out then.
Much to our surprise, our doctor announced, “Here SHE is!”
And we thought, “Oh, hell. We’re screwed.”
After the initial newborn exam and being moved to the post-partum part of the floor, the hunt for a name was on!
None of the names we had as contenders seemed to fit.
Nurse shift changes after pediatrician visits left us suffering from cases of “Do you have a name yet?” and “There must be a mistake on her chart. Her first name isn’t listed?!”
Sorry, people, but it is not a mistake. We, in fact, have not given our child a name yet.
The second day we were there, Craig ran home and desperately started googling baby names. I remember nursing her while reading and responding to some off-the-wall possibilities.
(And to prevent unintentionally insulting anyone, I will not share those here.)
There was a lot of trauma surrounding Kate’s first week of life, and because of what happened with her (in TN), this hospital (in NH) decided from Day 1 that Baby Girl would be staying a little longer.
Which meant we had 1 extra day in our quest for a name.
For the record, “Madelyn” was not a name among our contenders, and, if you refer to the list above, is a name that does not fall in line with point #1.
We are a house of 1 syllable names: Craig, Liz, Kate and Jack.
Somebody tell me how “Madelyn” fits into that?
And we knew that as much as we say we wanted to try to always call her “Madelyn”, we’d inevitably shorten it to either “Maddie” or “Mad.”
Craig had to bite the bullet on this one, and he agreed to break his #1 Naming Baby principle.
The funny thing is, after the “Madelyn” was decided upon, I pulled “Rose” out of the air, and it fit perfectly!
So, do I think she’s a Madelyn Rose?
-Yes, I do. Though Craig still isn’t 100% convinced.
But do I think she’s a Maddie?
-No, and neither does Craig. But that’s what she’s mainly called, thus our continued issue.
What should we have named her instead?
- Ella Marie, which was the other ‘girl’ name we had for Kate.
Have we seriously talked about changing her name?
- Yes, we’ve had the discussion many a time. But don’t worry, Madelyn Rose she will stay.
We love all those personalized baby gifts too much.
{This post is part of Word Up, YO!}
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Madelyn Rose is a beautiful name! She shares the same middle name as my daughter
I really like how you waited until seeing her to decide and I can see your dilemma about her name getting shortened, although I think it sounds cute.
What was the trauma surrounding Kate’s birth? Or did you already post about that?
I think y’all picked a beautiful name. We had trouble choosing a name for our 3rd child and finally came up with Ashlyn Elizabeth and I love it. When she was born Ashley was very popular but not Ashlyn. Now there are a ton of Ashlyn’s.
Wow! That’s an interesting story. I was definitely left wondering from some of your earlier posts what you meant and I’m glad you posted about it. I have another friend who thought she was having a girl (based on 3 ultrasounds) and turned out with a boy. She didn’t name him for 2 weeks!! So I think you guys did pretty good!
I love to see the process of how people pick names. We had all sorts of rules but the biggest was a name that needed to be able to be shortened. Hence, our son Maxwell or Max.
I think her name is very pretty! I can relate, though. If I could assign my son a new middle name, I totally would!
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