When we found out we were pregnant with my little boy, of course we looked through baby name books and scanned film credits to see if we could see 'the' name, but it seemed to come relatively easy to us.
We had already had 'baby name' conversations, way before we were even considering trying for a baby, so we always knew Harry was a strong contender. I guess if I'm honest...this was heavily influenced by Harry Potter, back when he was EVERYWHERE! We even said how we liked the name Hermione too!!
After we found out we were having a boy - completely accidentally when our eccentric 60+ Iranian consultant blurted something that meant it was undeniably a boy we were looking at on the ultrasound screen - the name Harry evolved into Harrison somewhere along the way. Where did we get it from? I guess it was partly from Harrison Ford, Harrison King (a sixth former at my school) and Dexter's sons name. Yes naming your son after a serial killers son may not be the conventional route to follow, but hey, we wanted to be slightly different, without being too extreme. Harrison seemed perfect, he won't be one of the 3 Harry's likely to be in his class at school and we used the shortened spelling Harri as a nod to my Welsh upbringing.
Middle names? Well, I have always been a fan of James, simple, strong and it's also my husbands middle name, so I thought it would make a nice family tradition. When my husbands Grandad sadly passed away just before we got pregnant, he thought it would be a lovely tribute to give our son his name too, so James was kicked out and Anthony it was.
Only one problem... Harrison Anthony Maynard= HAM! I tried to live with this, but the thought of him being nicknamed Hammy by his mates made me shiver! So when it came time to put his name on the birth certificate I managed to persuade my Husband that we should pop James in there too, so Harrison Anthony James it is! Lovely, pretty simple really.
When we discovered we are having a girl this time, after we got over the total shock (we were utterly convinced it was another boy for some reason?!), I thought I had the name sorted. A name that I had loved for years, even though, bizarrely, we had a chicken named it when I was a baby. But as you generally have to agree with your other-half when naming your child, this name has been shelved for now; boo hoo! Sad face.
So it was back to the drawing bored. Scouring baby name websites, reading the baby name book in bed, listening to every child's name in the park/ play group, reading every celebrities name in every magazine at the hairdressers etc etc.
There have been several occasions that I thought I had 'the one' only to suggest it to scott and get a shrug or a grunt or a definite no. Great. I had just been calling my daughter that for the entire day and now it's scraped, just like that. Of course, I have done the same to him, quite a few times.
Girls names are hard. Just think about all the criteria it has to meet: it has to be pretty, but not silly; serious enough so that they could be a lawyer or doctor one day (well genes do sometimes skip from Grannies and uncles don't they?), but not boring; different, but not weird; sound good for a little chubby baby, a gorgeous cheeky toddler, a grumpy teenager and an adult; get approval from friends, as well as family.
I want it to say 'beautiful, blond (it's pretty likely), cheeky enough to have personality, brainy enough to get by in the world, serious when she wants to be but fun when she's with her friends. I want people to say 'what a beautiful name, you don't hear it very often do you.'; not that's 'different' or 'interesting' or 'nice' or 'sweet', but 'gorgeous' and 'lovely' and 'pretty'.
I was starting to doubt that there is such a name. But today I feel like we've found it!! I don't even know where it came from, I think I accidentally stumbled across it while looking at another name, or maybe it just sprung into my head, I can;t remember. It was like a epiphany!
The real miracle is, we both agree! But now the middle name is undecided...
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