The Name Game

Thank you all who have given your best wishes and congratulations. Several people have complimented Emerson's name, so I thought I would share how it came to be.

I always new I would name my daughter (if I ever had one) Olivia, after my grandmother, but over the years, I began to think of that more as her middle name and settled on Emily as a first name, close to my mom's name, Emma, but still different enough to be her own name.

The years went by and the time finally came that I made the decision to adopt, and that's when I found out that Emily had become the #1 girls name in the US for the past nine years!!! I was one of several Denises each year in school and didn't want that for my daughter, so I went back to Olivia...and found out IT was the number 4 girl's name for the past several years. Good grief!! My daughter was going to be "Hey, you!" at that rate.

First was Georgia, but as much as I liked it (and still do), it just didn't feel right. Next came Piper. Too pretentious. Brielle? Nobody would pronounce it correctly. Collette! LOVED it! I'll call her Coco! But when I put "Coco" with my french last name, I realized I would be responsible for giving my daughter a stripper name and scratched that one off the list, too. Several other names were tested and rejected and I was beginning to lose hope.

And then I was reading an article on Teri Hatcher one day and it mentioned her daughter "Emerson". I'd never heard of it as a girl's name before, but I just instantly knew THAT was my daughter's name. It was not common, but not difficult to pronounce or spell, was close enough to Emma to honor my mom, I could call her "Emmy" as a child (unless she's up to mischief in which case a stern "Emerson Olivia!" might be necessary), and I could TOTALLY see "Emerson XXXXXX, CEO" or "Dr. Emerson XXXXXX" letterhead in her future. :)

It's funny how names cycle, though. In the past year, I've seen 3 other people who've chosen Emerson for their daughter, also, although one family changed their mind and have since gone with a different name. But that's ok. The world can use a lot more Emersons and I don't think it will ever be so popular that she'll be one of many in her class. :)