Choosing Names: Stefanie's Guest Post

Hello all!  Happy Monday!  Today's post is from Stefanie about choosing her children's name!  Hope you enjoy and thanks so much Stefanie!!

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Naming a child can be a difficult process!  A name is one of the first gifts you give your child, so it takes a lot of thought. I have some experience with this process, because I had the privilege of naming four children!

We never found out the gender of our children while we were expecting, so we had to come up with two names each time.  In my experience, coming up with a boy name was a lot more difficult!

My husband and I tend to go for simple boy names that can't be shortened into a nickname, but we are the opposite with girl names.  We like elegant ones that can be shortened into a cute nickname.  The middle names are always in honor of a family member.

We found out we were expecting our first child in 2004, and we immediately bought a baby name book.  I suggested the name Alexandria for a girl.  It was a name I always loved, and I was supposed to be Alexandra until my older siblings vetoed it. While reading through the book, we found another girl name that we loved: Arabella. We decided if the baby was a girl, we would wait until we met her to see which name fit her best. We read through the list of boy names, from A to Z, and Dylan was the only name we both agreed on.  We decided on Dylan, with the middle name Ross, which is a family name on my husband's side.

On November 22nd, Dylan Ross entered our lives.  His name was chosen early in our pregnancy, and the name fits him perfectly!

Two years later, baby #2 was on the way.  Alexandria and Arabella were still the only names on our girl list and we decided on Logan or Caden for a boy. We chose the middle name Elizabeth for a girl, after my mom's second middle name.  Once again, we decided to wait until we met our baby to see which name fit him/her best.

On February 22nd, 2007, Alexandria Elizabeth was born.  Within a few hours, we gave her the nickname Lexie.  I love how she has a pretty first name that will be perfect in a professional situation, but a nickname that suits her well right now.

About two years after Lexie was born, I heard the name Lilia, and I loved it. I thought it would sound even prettier as Liliana (pronounced Lily-awna).  Even though we thought we were done having children, I told my husband that if we ever had another girl, her name would be Liliana.  He agreed, and 2 years later, we decided to have another baby.

We never even discussed a girl name.  Liliana Kathryn would be the name if we had a girl.  Kathryn is my middle name, which happens to be a family name. We never settled on a boy name, although many were suggested.  If it was a boy, he would be named Hayden or Liam, but it was never decided.  While I was pushing, we argued boy names!

Luckily, we didn't have to decide.  On August 3rd, 2011, Liliana Kathryn was welcomed into the world as the sun rose over Pittsburgh.  Her nickname quickly became Lily and the name is just as sweet as she is.

We thought that was the end of our baby naming story, but when Lily turned 17 months, we found out another little blessing would be joining us.  We immediately decided to use Arabella as our girl name, but we could not come up with a boy name.

We argued names through my entire pregnancy, and we were still arguing over the name while I was pushing.  The only thing certain was that he would have the middle name Dayne after my husband's dad's middle name.  He passed away just before we found out we were expecting again, and we knew we would give our son that name, in honor of him.

On August 18th, 2013, a beautiful little boy joined our family.  When our son was born, we were delivered the unexpected news that they suspected he had Down Syndrome.  We were so shocked over the news that we never settled on a name.

When he was a few hours old, I told my husband that he could choose the name. On our list was Mason, Liam, and Cohen.  My husband smiled and announced his name would be Liam Dayne.

I'm 99.9% certain that Liam is our last child.  I am slightly bummed that we won't get to use the name Arabella, but maybe I can convince one of my daughters to use it someday!

Our baby naming journey lasted nearly a decade.  The names we chose fit our children's personalities perfectly!