16 November 2011

How we chose Hazel...

I admit, it's been a week since I last posted.  It's really unlike me not to post, but sometimes life gets in the way & *gasp* there are other things more important, y'know?

At any rate, we finally decided on a name for our little girl...


 

A little info about the name Hazel:
-It was somewhat common back in the 1880s & 1890s, then pretty much dropped off the face of the planet until Julia Roberts named one of her twins Hazel.  That's why you mostly only see great grandmothers & kindergardeners with the name.  :)
-It's a tree.  It's also a nut.  And an eye color.  I figure she will probably be a nut.  :)
-It's a Bob Dylan song (who knew?)
-It was a main character on a sitcom before I was born.  This bothers my mom quite a bit!  :)  But she doesn't mention it much.
-It was used for boys some from 1900-1940.

It's an older name, which is kind of funny because I grew up with what I considered an older name.  But mine was only old by one generation... Hazel is old by, like, 3 or 4 generations!  And I have a feeling it will become more popular.  I also like that it's kind of a southern thing.  Not overwhelmingly, but just a hint of southern.  Bonus?  I went to Hazelwood Elementary.  That's not why we named her that, but when we were looking for a meaningful name, I went through things in my hometown, family members, etc, and Hazel was one of the names that I dug up from that.

Did we name her after anyone?  Yes & no.  The Hazel part is just because we really like the name... even though we both have family members named Hazel.  Catherine is definitely after Josh's great aunt.  She passed away nearly 2 years ago & had a profound impact on his life.  He mentioned it one day, and I think the name is pretty anyway, plus, I like his aunt, so why not?  I also like that it's a pretty common, traditional middle name.  My middle name is Elizabeth, and they seem in the same category for me.  In case she absolutely hates her first name later on, she at least has a name that has been common for centuries to fall back on!

Picking a name was not an easy task for us.  I imagine it isn't for any parent.  It's a huge responsibility... a name that will follow the child for their entire life.  So Josh & I had some criteria for picking a name:

1) Easy so spell
2) Easy to pronounce
3) Easily recognizeable
4) Not overly common

Why were these so important to us?  Well, we both have pretty common names, and we like that people don't have to constantly ask us how to spell our names... or just misspell/mispronounce them.  We didn't want her to be stuck with an out-there name that 'sounded cool at the time.'  But we also didn't want the world's most popular name because we kind of like to march to the beat of a different drum a bit.

We went through a ton of names!  Some of the front runners were:

Madison - too common
Madelyn - too common
Katelynn Julianne - funny spelling & too common (I realize we could just change the spelling, but Anne & Lynn are our mother's middle names, so the spelling was important to us on this one)
Isla (pronounced eye-luh) - don't think I need to explain why this one didn't make the cut
Ella
Elodie - a little too uncommon, making it questionable to pronounce
Willow

According to our 'criteria,' the only 2 names that could possibly survive are Ella & Willow.  Which is kind of cool because both of those could be great sister names for Hazel.

We also dealt with the perfect name with a perfect nickname (not that I'm all about nicknames, but if it's a good one, that's a bonus)... but a blaring reason why we can't name our child by that name.  We have someone close to us that lost someone very close to them... who had exactly the same name.  Truthfully, if we asked this person about it, s/he would say that it's totally fine & not to worry about it... but I know that this person would think about it all the time & it would open up old wounds... so why even go there?

And why was Willow not my fave?  It certainly was a favorite with most people we asked.  I just have one thing to say (because I haven't seen the movie-- I'm certain I'd have more to say if I had):

I whip my hair back and forth!

1 comment:

Nate & Danielle said...

Beautiful name! Can't wait for your baby shower Saturday!! :)

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