Tuesday, October 16, 2012

What's In A Name?



Even before I had a child, I knew exactly what to name him/her. If it’s a boy I wanted the names Rafael, Inigo or Joaquin. But tough luck, a very close friend of mine named her sons .. Ynigo Rafel and  Joaquin Matteo. So those off the list when I got pregnant. And then I got into F1 and I really love Sebastian Vettel. So I wanted Sebastian for a boy name but I thought it was too long a name for a first name. For first name I singled out on Noah (from Noah Wyle of ER)...Noah Sebastian. But when I got pregnant ABS-CBN came out with the teleserye Noah. So I was kinda hoping our baby wasn’t a boy hahaha! I'm pretty sure a lot of Filipino moms who gave birth around that time named their boy Noah. For baby girl names I liked Maya or Maja and Margaret so for a full name I wanted Margaret Yasmin or Margaret Jasmin. I also like the name Aurora (from Sleeping Beauty). Although if I name our girl Margaret Aurora my dilemma was should I nickname her Mau or Maui (as in Maui Taylor)? Hmm...

This would make you think I made my own daughter e  noh? No input from the father??? Really, everytime someone asks me if we have a name I say that we already have. If its's a boy it's Noah Sebastian and if a girl it's Margaret Y(J)asmin.

When we found out we were having a girl I conceded that hubby has to have an input too. So I asked him to come up with a girl name for our baby. I'll give one name and he'll give the other. Boys being boys he waited until the last minute. I remember I was already in my last trimester before he looked for a name. Heck, maybe even after we already packed our hospital bags. He wanted a Japanese name. With the help of a website he searched on Japanese names. I remebered he suggested Rei and I think a few other Japanese names. We also found Yanni in the website which is a Hebrew name with the meaning God is Gracious. I liked Yanni because we can still nickname our child Maya by just replacing Yasmin with Yanni. Or maybe Yanni Aurora so that I can still use the name Aurora. We were a bit undecided on it so he went back to searching for Japanese names. And then he stumbled upon Miya which means increasingly beautiful. And I loved it!

I was also becoming undecided on the fact that our daughter’s nickname is a combination of her first and second name. See, I work for an international organization and most of the times other nationalities don’t get our (Filipino’s) knack for nicknames. I have a Maria as my first name, and most of my contacts refer to me as Maria instead of my nickname. Foreseeing my child’s future in the international arena (arena daw o!), I wanted to give her a first name which she can use as her nickname.  

So there, that's the story of how we named our daughter...our increasingly beautiful pearl.


2 comments:

Deepa said...

I love your story, Cris :)
Ang hirap maagawan, no? Lucas was a name that I totally loved until a friend of ours used it for her son.
I think the names you ended up with are beautiful. Miya is easy to grasp, but the spelling makes it unique. You also saved her from the inevitable nicknames Marge or Margie!

cris said...

Thanks, Deepa! Lucas is a nice name kaso so common na these days. Pde rin sana Luca kaya lang with the Pinoy humor for sure he will be teased Luca-luca. LOL!

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