The name game
We've all played it at some point. Searching through books, scouring family names, watching tv with one agenda....find the perfect name. Sure we named our baby dolls when we were young, and probably even came up with names for numerous unborn children. But when it really comes down to it, naming your sweet precious baby can be hard, fun but hard. Here is a little bit of our journey.
Naming boys always seemed to be easy for us. We like last names for first names because they are unique and strong. With the boys we always had a definite forerunner and a couple names in in the bank. We just had to see what fit them best when they arrived. We named our first son Cohen after watching all four seasons of the O.C. and loving Seth Cohen and the fact that they called him "Cohen". This was 7 years ago and I still love his name. I'm so glad we went with our gut that many years ago, even before unique names were very popular. Then 5 years later Kempton came along. Again boy names just come easier for us. A strong last name that goes well with older brother's name. Check. Plus you always have to think of the nicknames or shorten version of the name and Kemp fits him perfectly! (Kemp means athlete or champion)
So we have a Cohen Brooks (named after daddy Brooks) and a Kempton David (named after grandpa Dave who passed away a year before he was born). Now we are pregnant with a girl!! I dreamed and dreamed about what it would be like if at the gender ultra sound I would hear those words....It's a girl. When we did the shock and excitement was overwhelming. The second we got in the car there was so much planning to do. Starting with a name!!! Brooks, who is normally the name everything guy, looked at me and said I don't like any girl names. Ha! And I felt the same way.
We were finally having a little princess and the name had to be perfect. Pretty and sweet and strong and go with brother's names and have meaning and be named after a family member....the list just went on and on. Should we stick with last names? Should we stick with the same consonant sound as the boys? What to do?! Again I had a boy name all ready to go and now we had to switch it up. Brooks and I would talk about names till we were blue in the face and finally just decide none of them were her name. It would come to us, or so we kept telling ourselves. Here are some that were on our list....
Ellison (Elle) Tamara
Quinn
Aislynn Anne
Lynlee
Lyndon
Cambelle (Elle)
Palmer Quinn
Kendi Lynn
Berkleigh
Quinlyn (Quin) Kate
We were pretty set on Quinlyn Kate and the boys even started calling her baby Quin. However the closer it got to her arrival, the more the name just didn't seem to be the RIGHT name. First of all I had been really mixing up Cohen and Kempton's names recently and I felt like adding another "Cu" sound to the mix might really confuse things. Secondly the name Quinlyn Kate did not incorporate any of my mom's name which I was really wanting to do. Cohen is named after Brooks' mom's side, Kempton is named after Brooks' dad, and I wanted my daughter to be named after my side of the family, or my mom and me. And the third reason I decided against it was because not knowing the sex, Brooks and I had already quietly given the name Quinn to our Angel baby a few years back and I felt it was important to leave that name special to him or her.
So now what......
I honestly didn't know how we were going to come up with something that we both liked that also fit our criteria. And then bam it came to me. A last name, strong with a cute shortened version, using my mom's name, and my name, and sounds good with brother's names. ANISTON LYNN or Ani Lynn. Named after Tami Ann and Amanda Lynn. Plus we share the same monogram which makes it all the more fun. It gives me an excuse to buy things with my initials on them :)
So there you have it. Thats how princess Ani got her name. And now that she is here it 100% fits her. She is such an Aniston :)
Oh and just for fun if we were having girl twins the names would of been Ellison and Aniston and if they were boy and girl Asa and Aniston. See we've played the name game waaaaaaay too much.
Newborn photos by Alayne Johnson