Our little "girl's" name....

We've had the name Avelyn picked out since before we were married. There's a movie with Pierce Brosnan (love him!) called Evelyn, about a father who has to fight for custody of his own children (Ireland - 1954) after his wife abandons them the day after Christmas 1953.

Irish law at the time forbade a father from raising his own children without his wife if she were alive and had not provided written consent for him to do so. Without that consent the children were removed from his care and placed in to the care of the Catholic church. It was ruled later by the Irish Supreme Court that this was unconstitutional and after 2 years of fighting to get his children back he had won the right to parent them.

That's the background. The eldest child was a girl, her name was Evelyn. If anyone has ever had the pleasure of listening to the Irish speak, there is a beauty that comes with their brogue that can turn the most simple words into music. In Ireland the name Evelyn (which we don't really care for) is pronounced A-v-lyn (if you go to this site they have an audio link to hear the pronunciation - it's the second one down).

When Matt and I traveled to Ireland and Scotland 3 years ago we had just started TTC and there was a couple on the trip (probably in their late 40s early 50s) that the wife was a bit much. She was asking us how long we'd been married, whether we were planning on having kids, and what their names are. When we told her our girl's name she told us that we'd change our mind a 100 times before then. We disagreed.

Three years later, if this child does end up being a girl, she will be called Avelyn (or Avlyn - not sure how we'll spell it yet, but we know the Gaelic spelling will confuse the heck out of people). In Gaelic the name Aibhlinn means "wished-for " or "longed-for child": That pretty much sealed the deal on the name for us. This child has been wished for and longed for for many years.

Clare or Margaret:

Clare, besides being an Irish name and county of Ireland (can you tell I have a bit of a thing with Ireland - good thing I am Irish) was also the name of my grandmother's best friend. When I was little she and my grandmother spent a lot of time together, and that time was spent sewing God knows how many outfits for me: I was seriously the best dressed kid around. She died when I was 1 or 2, after that my grandmother didn't sew as much, it wasn't the same for her without her best friend.

Margaret was this same grandmother's name (my mom's mom - she came to America from Germany when she was 25 or so); it's my mother's middle name and my middle name. Growing up I HATED having the middle name Margaret...so many other people had such normal names, not this gutteral beast that I had. As I grew up, I liked it more and more and loved that it was my grandmother's name.

We still have to decide on a middle name. It will basically come down to whether we want to keep Margaret (or "Maggie" as we would call her - there I go with the Irish again) available as a first name for a future daughter.