Posts About Babies: Name It

Now, for those of you paying attention, the name of this blog post has already been used before, even though the auto-fill option on this computer did not recognize it. It's true, I was looking for a name for the "Posts About Babies" series, and landed on the working title anyway, but that's not the point. The point is that this is no repeat. This is all new! Now, if you weren't paying attention, than this explanation was actually not needed, and you can carry on with reading the actual post...

We are naming our baby girl Evelyn. I was totally convinced that this was the best choice, with the sweetest meaning we could come up with, but I wanted to run it by my Dad first. You see, when we were thinking of names, we were going through our parents and grandparents names to see if any were a good fit, in a way to honor our families. My grandmothers names were Betty and Evelyn. We both liked Evelyn, and thought it would make my dad happy, and who doesn't want to do that, anyway? Not that making my dad happy was the actual, main motive here, but we thought it would be an nice touch. Part of me thought that my mom would feel weird about it, as my parents are divorced, and, well, you know. I believe I've heard stories about how my grandmother (Evelyn) was not a big fan of my mother when they were dating/married or something. Therefore, calling her first grandchild a name of her former mother-in-law might be a little strange for her. The key part for me/her/us to remember is THIS IS NOT HER, AND THIS IS OUR CHILD. Yes, I just got capital on your ass, and yes I just got real defensive. Not sure exactly why, but nonetheless...

I wanted to run the name by my father as well, because, after all, this was his mothers name. I asked him on Thanksgiving day about how he would feel, and he said "Well, she hated that name..."

Ugh... Now what? I mean, I know we all called her Nina, but I figured that was just like, a grandma name, ya know? I guess I didn't realize there was more to it. So while I was formerly convinced that Evelyn was the name, no question, I was now, in fact, questioning it. There was no reason to question it, however, because this is my child. This is our child, me and my wife. She absolutely loved the name, and wasn't budging. So that's what we're going with. That's her name.

Mom, if you don't like it, just call her Evie. That's what I'm going to do most of the time anyway. You aren't my only parent. Sorry. I know you were "there" for me because I lived with you, and no one does more for me than you do and I love you very much. But I also love my father, and I had a grandmother whom I loved as well, even if I didn't know her all that well. Her name was Evelyn. My daughter's name is Evelyn. I love you, even if you hate my child's name, but won't actually say it. I understand.