Her Name? Ah Yes, That’s a Story…..

Choosing a name for my baby was very hard for me.  I spent the better part of the year tossing around different ideas.  Ironically, I definitely knew what boy name I would have chosen.  But after I decided to request a girl, I hemmed and hawed for a long while.  About once a week I would send my sister a list of 10 different name combinations and she would put them in order of her favorites.  I considered names from Lennox to Teagan, from Marguerite to Isolde and Georgianna to caitlin.  Round and round, up and down.  I couldn’t settle on anything and eventually said, “well, I’ll pick up a name after I see her.”

 

After I accepted my referral, Margaret - who was heartily sick of my by-then daily emails of increasingly random name choices - gave me a deadline and said I had to pick my top three. Withering under her threat of never programming my VCR again, I caved and selected a top three list:  Madeleine, Isobel, and Annabelle. 

 

I liked Madeleine a lot, and I liked the sound of Madeleine Mericle too.  But in the end, Maddy just proved too popular.  I went to visit a daycare and one of of the teachers yelled “Maddy” and I think about six little girls turned around.  So on to Isobel.  Isobel is the Scottish variant of Isabelle.  I love it.  But everyone I sought an opinion from advised me against it.  Mainly because of the unusual spelling and pronunciation (EE-sobel).  I didn’t want Isabelle for the same reasons as Maddy – too popular right now. But I also didn’t want my kid to have name that no one could spell or pronounce.  Growing up with a name like Maureen, I dealt with that and I hated it.  (I grew up wishing I was named Jenni or Linda or something simple.)  So that left Annabelle and I ran it by my family and got the thumbs up, everyone liked it.  (I tried to ignore the information offered up by a male friend that a woman named Annabelle holds the world record for gang bangs on film or some other dubious honor in the porn world.)

 

I settled on an original middle name of Shea because my Grandmother’s maiden name was McShea.

 

After my sister died, I changed Annabelle’s middle name to Margaret to honor my sister’s memory and decided to keep Shea as a second name.

 

Introducing Annabelle Margaret Shea Mericle……

 

 

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