A Rose by any other name

"What do you call her?" people ask us when we tell them we named our baby girl Eleanor.

We call her Eleanor. Mostly. Sometimes. Ok, so really we call her all manner of things that are not her name.
Squnchler.
Twinkle Butt
Tooty Booty
_______ Girl (Little, Sweet, Darling, Bitty, Baby)
Baby _______ (Girl, Bug, Butt)
Sweetness & Light
Tiny Dancer
Squirmer
Pretty Puker

But I think what people really mean is do we have a nickname for her. Do we call her Ellie? The truth is sometimes I call her Ella. More often I call her Ella-bug. J likes to call her Nora, but for some reason that becomes Nora-bug too.

But she was named for my great-grandma Rose Ella. This little rose might be Ella. She might be Nora. She was also named for J's grandma Wanda OQuin. Maybe she'll decide that she wants to go by her middle name, which would confuse me, but I like the name, so that's ok. So, whatever name she chooses, she will still be as sweet.

The EQ

So, naming a child is a bit of a daunting task.
But a fun one.

I admit, I'm the kind of girl who thought about the eventual "what ifs" of baby naming long before there was ever even a possibility for a baby. At one time I had the idea to name a son Orion Xavier. Yeah... his initials would have been OX. I got over that.

Anyway, when we discovered that "we" would soon mean "me & J & a BABY" I started thinking of names pretty much immediately. J & I had some ideas. Such as, if the baby were a boy, we wanted to name him after our fathers. We'd use J's dad's middle name for the middle name, and find a G name to honor my father whose initials are GW, well, GWB technically, but the point is that our last name starts with  W, so we would be making another little GW. So there's that. We settled on G names pretty quickly. By like week 9 or some such. Had this baby been a boy, the naming thing would have been in the bag.

So of course the ultrasound tech says "girl." Kind of just like that too. "I'm going to say girl." Her exact words. You can understand then why I kept saying, "so they say" whenever we would reveal the baby's sex. "A girl, so they tell me." All the way up until they pulled her out. But I digress.

Girls names were much harder for J & I to agree on. We both liked the same type of names, but couldn't seem to find one name that we both really liked. I had the idea pretty early on that I wanted to use "Ella" as a middle name. It was my great-grandmother's middle name. Rose Ella. Pretty. Of course, as my grandpa says, because she was from Oklahoma, it was really "Rose Eller" but that's not really the point. Of course, my middle name is my mother's middle name which in turn was given to her to honor her grandmothers--that whole first initial thing. So, the family connection there really appealed to me. This is also why we liked the name Quinn, for either a boy or a girl. It's J's grandmother's maiden name. Well, O'Quinn. Or oQuin. Or something. I think the story goes that there are 7 or 9 siblings of that generation and none of them spell their last name the same. The presence or absence of an "O" (and the subsequent capitalization of it), an apostrophe and a second "n" are all contested. Regardless, we with with the "O'"-less-double"n" version.

The problem was finding any name that sounded good with "Ella" as a middle name. Names that end in "a" just don't flow right. Names that end in "n" wind up sounding like medicine or bacteria.

We decided to try Ella as a first name, but I wasn't really happy with the nickname-feel of it. I guess I tend to like more formal-sounding names. Also Ella is pretty common and while I don't mind names that are easy to recognize, spell and pronounce, I do also like names that are a little more... unusual. Even if that's because they're more classic and have fallen out of favor. Hence, Eleanor. Old-fashioned, classic, pretty, keeps the idea of Ella and also Ellen (my middle name), and even a little bit of a hint towards my grandmother's middle name, Nyra.

But we still weren't convinced, and couldn't decide on a middle name, so we narrowed our choices down to 3 names that we both liked and decided that we'd wait until we saw the wee Freckle with our own eyes before deciding upon her name. This drove many of my friends & family a wee bit crazy, but it was the right decision. It's also the reason for this:

One look at her (even when she was periwinkle blue and a tiny bit cone-headed) and we knew. She was Eleanor. Will she stay Eleanor? Will she become Ella as she grows? Will we continue to call her Freckle? Dunno. Right now, she remains The Squnchler.

Dark & Mysterious... or something

I've always wanted to be mysterious. I like spy capers and magicians and would love an excuse to wear a cape. I'm drawn to female characters with "a past" who are intriguing because they are "unknowable." My husband claims that I am "unknowable" only because my wants are many, varied, and sometimes fleeting. I think "unpredictable" is a better word, and even that is something of a stretch. I almost always want the purple one of whatever it is, and will choose chocolate over fruit-based desserts an astonishingly large proportion of the time. So, you know... predictable.

Well, I'm not now, nor have I ever been, nor will I ever be mysterious. It's just not in my nature. Dark is also sort of right out. Pasty & freckled aren't exactly the first correlating physical attributes that leap to mind when one mentions "mystery" but that's ok. I mean, Galadriel was light & mysterious, so that is an option, just not for me.

I think the problem is in subtlety. I have none. My friend Dan once summed it up perfectly: "You're a six-foot red head. I think Mother Nature ruled subtlety right out." I can do dramatic. I can be bold. Neither of those things are necessarily full of mystery. Also, I have no "poker-face." None. When they say you can read people like a book... I'm one of those people. I can keep secrets, but it takes a lot of effort. (In fact, I'm keeping at least 3 secrets from you right now, so there!) I'm not quite so bad at keeping secrets as my husband, who has on more than 3 occasions had to buy me multiple Christmas gifts because he couldn't wait to give me the first one he bought. I totally luck out in that department. Me? I just buy gifts as I see them and then hide them in the house so that when it comes time to wrap gifts I realize that some people (the easy to shop for) have multiple gifts. I am also very easy to shop for.

I think it's because I like stuff, and I'm not shy in my appreciation. I'm actually not really shy about anything. I refrain from telling strangers my medical history, but I've been known to discuss my innards with my friends and family in a candid, yet (I find) humorous way. I will talk to strangers while out and about. There just doesn't seem to be too much that I won't talk about to just about anybody.

See, I just can't be mysterious! I want to talk to people and tell them things I know and things I heard and about the stuff I like. I want to hear all of that from them too. I want to know stuff, so I tell people stuff, and one of the things I know the most about is me. Obviously, I also tell all of you these things too. Can one be mysterious while blogging? Sure! You only reveal what you want to, right? I just happen to reveal a lot, because I don't find too many topics off-limits. I think the over-all impression one might get about me from this blog is probably pretty accurate to life. I'm talkative, sometimes obnoxiously so. I'm funny sometimes. I'm awkward a lot of the time. I love my cats and purple. I have opinions about stuff. I don't see much of a separation between "The Bean" and me. I tell my real-life friends and family about this space, and my mom even reads my blog (Hi Mom!), so it's not a deep, dark secret.

Now, my name isn't "Bean." My name doesn't mean "bean" in any foreign language nor is any family name derived from bean or legume-type words...that I know of. That being said, the detective skills required to find out my "secret identity" are more Beastie Boys than Hardy Boys. "The Bean" came from le bean, which came from LEBean, which came from LEB, my initials before I married a man with a last name at the tail-end of the alphabet, and that alphabet thing still kinda bothers me a bit. A fair trade for a wonderful husband, but not my favorite part of changing my name. I also used to be able to sign my entire name Firstname MiddleInitial Lastname without picking up my pen... a trick I learned from my mom (thanks Mom!). Now, I do have to pick up my pen once. The hardship I endure!


Anyway, I'm not mysterious. I'm sort of eclectic, but that's not the same thing. I'm not all that weird, because I know people like me, and there must be lots of other people I don't know who are like me too. I mean, I've been told lots of times by very different people that I remind them of their best-friend from grade-school or whatever, so I'm obviously not all that weird. Just weird enough. There is no mystery to my weirdness unless it's maybe in how I manage to like and do the things I do all at the same time... but, even that seems simple to me.

I just do.

Mystery solved.

Things I (probably) won't name my hypothetical future child

EDIT: Automatic updating works a heck of a lot better when you remember to put the correct DATE in the scheduled field... just a tip for the wise!

I've been fascinated with names for quite a while. Maybe it's an egotistical thing because I think my name is fairly unique and awesome. I remember asking my mom about how my name was picked when I was quite young and pondering what my life would be different if they'd gone with Dad's first choice (Megan or Jennifer, I think). I like knowing people's middle names and seeing how that changes the sound of their name in my head... which isn't to say that names have some sort of power over us as humans. We can rise above, beyond, beside (and other prepositions) our names, but as we go through life, we develop certain ideas about certain names. "Bob" is different than "Bartholomew" and when you hear those names you picture a type of person. That impression can be broken, but it still exists.

When I worked for a pediatrician's office, I got to see an astonishing number of spellings for common names, as well as a slew of uncommon names. When someone tells me that their baby's name is spelled "the usual way" I always ask for clarification. Ashley, Ashlee, Ashleigh? Candy, Candi, Kandi? Michaela, Michayla, Mikayla? Aaron, Erin? Steven, Stephen? Michelle, Meshell? I'm not even making this stuff up... it all happened!

We had a little boy named Lord as a patient, two boys named God's Power (one of whom had a brother and sister named God's Time and God's Will), and even a baby Linnea (who had blonde hair and blue eyes, like every other Linnea I've ever met in my whole life, which is 4). I know gents named Shannon and Kelly, but at that office I was introduced to girls named Ryan and Hunter, which led to the very awkward but necessary question in the "new patient" line-up: So, baby boy or girl? Oh man, the times I heard their answer followed by a snotty "obviously!" *sigh* fun times...

Still, my favorite baby name by far comes from the lovely Ndinjiakat family. That's pronounced "Ninja-Cat". Yeah, it is. I asked. Wonderful family: very polite when scheduling, always on time to their appointments. I liked them. When I joined the staff, they had a little boy named Samuel with big dark eyes and eyelashes for miles. So, Sam Ndinjiakat. Great name, but one he was born into. Then... then it happened. They had a baby girl, also with dark eyes and eyelashes for miles. And her name? Princess. Oh yeah. Princess Ndinjiakat. PRINCESS NINJA CAT! If she doesn't grow up to be a superhero, I'm gonna be disappointed!

Anyway, all that is the preamble to the fact that I have some thoughts and ideas about baby names.

Though it should go without saying, I'll say it anyway: These are just my opinions, subject to change at a moment's notice without further notice, explanation, justification or rationale. I'm not making allegations, assumptions or ridiculing (most of ) the names listed below, nor any specific persons you may or may not know with those names. If you like them, awesome! If you think they'd make great names for your future kids, hooray! Have at! Besides, don't let me influence your decision, unless you are my husband, in which case, this should totally influence your decisions. But just him. The rest of you can make your own decisions because you are, I think, grown ups*.