What's in a Name?

Earlier this month, I gave birth to my second child (big sister Phoebe is 2).  We had known I was having a girl since early February, and it seemed as if we had a long time to choose a name.  However, we headed into July with no definite choice, a list a mile long, and a very wide array of opinions from family and friends.

My husband, Paul, and I loved the name Olive. We were the only ones.

“You mean like Olive Oyl?” said my mother, wrinkling her nose.  “I think you’re taking your end-of-pregnancy frustration out on your baby,” said a good friend.  OK then.  How about Sydney? I suggested, since I was a big fan of the late dancer Cyd Charisse.  “As in Australia?” said my dad with distaste.  My husband liked Gabrielle, which my brother Paul claimed he had never heard before and couldn’t pronounce.  My brother Sean and his wife, Shannon, felt sorry for us and said they would not react one way or another to any name we were considering but wanted to hear the list.  I’m not sure their stony expressions at each possibility were any more helpful than the furrowed brows.

Other friends were more supportive.  We noticed that cool, young parents liked Olive, or at least encouraged us to go for it if we loved it.  But the third time I heard, “Well, she could always use her middle name when she gets older,” I began to reconsider.

We are like any parents--we wanted something charming and unique but yet classic, something not on the top 10 baby name lists but not off the top 1,000 (by the way, Olive is 999, thank you very much).  Choosing Phoebe’s name had been so easy – Paul and I both adored the character of Phoebe Caulfield in Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye.  Beyond the glistening olives in my husband’s martini I gazed at longingly during my pregnancy, we had no cultural inspiration for baby number two.

On the day I delivered her, July 7th, Nicole Kidman gave birth to Sunday Rose Kidman Urban, sparking a slew of media stories about odd celebrity baby names like Pilot Inspektor (son of actor Jason Lee), Kal-el (son of Nicolas Cage), Apple and Moses (children of Gwyneth Paltrow). OK, I thought, anything we choose will seem pretty normal by comparison.  In truth, Paul and I had settled on a name we both loved just days before she arrived – and we told no one.

When we got our first peek at her, we knew we’d made the right choice.  We sent around a quick birth announcement via e-mail, and almost every one of our family and friends told us they loved the name.  (My dad still says he just needs to get used to it.)  So, without further ado, pictured here is Miss Violet Cybelle King!