What’s in a name…

One of the most fun parts of the pregnancy was the selection (and withholding) of the name.  Since Tasha and I decided to find out the gender of our baby, we elected at that point to keep the name and most details surrounding our selection to ourselves.  This was to keep one aspect of our birth a surprise, so we had a little treat to share with everyone when she finally made her arrival.

Before we found out that we were having a girl, we had arrived fairly quickly on a few good candidates for boy’s names.  Before you ask: no, I’m not sharing those now either.  We could still have a boy at a later time.  We were largely undecided on girl’s names, with no clear candidates.  When we found out we had a little girl on the way, the hunt began.

The Criteria

Tasha and I had decided that we wanted names that were not trending upward in popularity, so she wouldn’t go to school and have dozens of other girls named the same thing.  Obviously, we didn’t want to pick a name that was too strange or easily made fun of.  Tasha and I also preferred names that have a special significance, with nerd credibility being an added bonus.

Let the weeding out process begin!

We considered a wide variety of names.  We opted for considering names that crossed our paths naturally at first.  For example, the waitress at one of our favorite pizza places (Beau Jo’s) was named Sadie and I thought that was rather pretty, but we weren’t over the moon excited for it.  We considered names from some of our favorite TV shows.  Tasha really enjoys Castle, so the name Kate Beckett was on the “to consider” list.  Similarly, we looked into literature, thinking of some of our favorite fantasy books.  We found most names in Tolkien far too vowel-ridden and fantasy inspired, so many of these were quickly ruled out.

Not knowing the name, my sister took it upon herself to nickname the baby “Princess Leia”, since Tasha and I are both big fans of Star Wars.  Again, this is not a name that I would force upon a child in real life.  Pun intended.

The name emerges

Inspiration came for me late one night after Tasha had gone to bed.  I was surfing the Internet, listening to iTunes with my headphones on when one of my favorite songs came up on shuffle: Eve, The Apple of My Eye by Bell X1.  For those of you that don’t know them, Bell X1 is an Irish indie band, and this haunting love song was featured on The O.C. here in the US.  Shortly after I heard it I made a leap of faith and bought the entire album and Tasha and I quickly fell in love with the group.

I found myself singing along (as I often do when I’m by myself) and got to thinking that Eve might be a strong contender for a name.  It sounds cute for a little girl (we’ve already been calling her “Evie”) and can be sophisticated as she grows up and becomes an adult.  The name has a strong biblical connotation and it means “Life” in Hebrew, which scored some extra points.  The more I thought about it the more the name grew on me, so when I went upstairs and found Tasha still awake I asked her about it.  She said that she really liked it, and also really liked “Marie” for a middle name.  I agreed that Eve Marie had a nice ring to it, and that was history.

Interesting side note: after deciding that we preferred this name, a few days later I went to Taco Bell and was surprised to see a teenager named Eve working the drive through window.  Knowing the name has been relatively unpopular of late, I considered this a sign that we were on the right path.

The more I thought about the name in the following months, the more I liked it and by the time she arrived we were fairly cemented that our baby daughter was to be named Eve Marie after one of our favorite songs.  She really is the apple of my eye, funny how that worked out.