Warning: this post is a meandering, frightening look into how my mind works…or doesn’t work.
A long (long) time ago, I promised a post about how we came to name our little girl, Amelie Dawn. Even though I had my…reservations, I have to say the name suits her, we all love it. So how did we get here?
In the past, I’ve mentioned my weird rule for naming our children. Add to that my obsession love for French culture and film. Plus my fascination of “different” or original names. And the fact that both Shane and I like our children’s names to have a special meaning. You get Amelie Dawn.
I first heard the name Amelie – pronounced Ah-Mel-Lee (the Ah makes the same sound as the a in father) – when I watched the quirky and much loved French film of the same name. That was about a decade ago. I fell in love with the name and tucked it away in my heart for many years.
Fast forward to 2012, I was pregnant during a very difficult year for our family. Among other things, around mid-pregnancy, both my grandmother (Lee) and and my husband’s grandmother (Dawn) were diagnosed with terminal cancer and given a very short time to live. Our hearts leaned toward naming our little girl after her grandmothers. Amelie being a nod to my Grandma Lee, and Dawn for Shane’s grandma.
But as the months wore on, I fell out of love with the name I had held close to my heart for so long. And I agonized (AGONIZED) over names. It was ridiculous. I began to hold tight to the name Greta Lynn. But couldn’t seem to settle on just one name…there are so many great names out there! At around 8 months pregnant, I made a list of my favorite names, tucked it away in the hospital bag and refused to look at it again until the baby was born.
I also created a survey to post when I went into labor so Somewhat Crunchy readers could vote on a name. What were the choices…there were 14! Amelie, Greta, Camile, Elise, Scarlett, Hazel, Nora, Amelia, Violet, Cora, Ruby, Ina, Phoebe and Audrey. (Violet won the survey)
When Amelie was born, Shane and I called her by every name on the list, trying each one out in turn. However, seeing that she was born with strawberry blonde hair we quickly threw out all the “color” names – Violet, Ruby, Scarlett, Hazel and Cora (because Cora reminds me of the color coral). I also nixed Camile because all I could hear in my head was “c’mere Camile” and I didn’t like the sound of that. Shane then vetoed Phoebe, Nora and Ina.
That left us with Amelie, Greta, Elise, Audrey and Amelia.
We went back and forth for TWO DAYS, eventually whittling the list down to our two originals – Amelie Dawn and Greta Lynn. In the end we went with Amelie because, before she was born, we had discussed how (to us) Amelie sounded like a baby with fair features and Greta sounded darker. Amelie is very fair with pink-pale skin, blue eyes and red hair.
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