Tuesday, September 18, 2007

What's In A Name?

Elizabeth wasn't my first choice for my baby girl's name.

Actually, I really didn't have a choice as I was still cruising the name lists the day she was born.

Jacob came up with Elizabeth months prior to her birth in the car during a long trip. I thought it was sent to him from the heavens, but most likely he was watching a Thomas video and Elizabeth, a lorry car, was on at the time. After that, the husband loved Elizabeth and I just kept looking for something else. It's not that I don't like the name, I do, it's just I didn't think it was the name. Plus, I spent most of my time searching for the perfect boy name. I found two I assumed we would be flipping coins over as we signed the birth certificate: Nathaniel Peyton and Ethan Samuel......cool, huh? So Elizabeth shows up and we begin to scramble on a name...well, I began to scramble. Derick had called everyone he knew before they even wheeled me to recovery to inform everyone of Elizabeth Laura's birth. From the beginning, we had planned on using Laura as her middle name, but we dropped the ball and didn't discuss it with my sister until the day of. She said she'd ask her husband and call back but she never did. Since Teresa gets uptight at the mere mention of the word "Laura" we figured it would be too much. We eventually gave up waiting for that call and I settled on Rachel, the name I wanted when I was pregnant with Adam. Rachel Elizabeth. I could live with that. Derick said he could too, but I could tell he was disappointed, so I agreed to swap the names. Once I signed those papers, though, I was full of regret. I liked Rachel. I wanted Rachel. Derick was on cloud nine with Elizabeth. I tried to love it. I tried to use it. I called her Beth and Ellie and even Lizard Breath at times. Elizabeth is just a hard name to coo to a colicky baby. Sometimes I call her Rachel. My friend calls her Rachel. My parents call her Rachel. Jacob informs us all that her name is Elizabeth. I secretly want to hide his Webkinz from him for coming up with it in the first place.

But the past few days I look at her and call her by her name and realize that she has suddenly become Elizabeth.

Elizabeth

Elizzzzzabeth

ElizaBETH

I think I like it. Finally.

Sure beats Lizard Breath.

5 comments:

OneHungMan said...

Wow, Elizabeth is such a beautiful name. Maybe one day you'll consider it THE name.

Dana said...

LOL! I don't know....I think Lizard Breath DOES have a certain flair.....

Crazed Nitwit said...

My oldest Keenan woud have been Noelle if he had been a girl, he was conceived on Christmas night.We knew our second was a boy but with Brennan we did not know so it was Brennan Reed or Brenna Joy. I still have Irish boys name I will never get to use.

I love the full name Elizabeth or Liza or Ellie or Beth, but I dislike Lizzy for some reason...they do grow into their names by 5/6 months old, don't they? :)

Lynanne said...

Elizabeth is a great name! We had chosen it for our daughter. Then, before we left the hospital (literally) we changed our mind. I fretted about it for quite some time afterwards. It wasn't as bad as with my first son where I had a tearful breakdown the first night home and made my husband call the hosptial and hold off on sending in the birth certificate.

At some point Miss E grew into her name. The same thing has happened with Lil' K. I couldn't use his name for the longest time because it just didnt feel right. I used a silly nickname instead. Little by little his name has begun to fit. I agree with Janice - it seems to take about 5 months.

The best part about the name Elizabeth is all the choices she'll have for nicknames (if she wants - my closest friend from high school insisted on using the full name until her senior year.)

Miss Hope said...

I had a name picked out for my second daughter and called her that from the day we found out her gender via ultrasound. My then jerk of a husband decided around 38 weeks that he did not like that name at all. I scrambled and found one to his liking...but in my mind she still carried the original name. After a month or two...her new name fit and I couldn't imagine her with any other.