The Name Game

I thought about names tonight because Julia was calling us by our names. First it was Graham and then it was me. Depending on what era you know me from my name is different. What cracked me up though was she was calling me Kathy. I rarely hear this anymore unless it is occasionally from my mom. However I have heard it more often in the last month from Christmas with my family and now living at my parent's house. Even our realtor was confused the other day. She had been calling me Kathy because she knows my mom. However, I always call myself Katherine and then on my voicemail the other day she heard Kat.

When you have a name like Katherine it can be shortened many different ways. So when it came to naming the girls I was determined to give them names that couldn't be shortened. I was so excited once I became pregnant to start playing the name game but Graham wasn't as excited and quickly vetoed my favorites. We have always come up with boy names quickly which is probably why we have two girls. With Julia it was the only name we or should I say he agreed on! I was sitting downstairs yelling name after name. The response was always no until I said it. "How about Julia?" It was a simple yes and we never looked back. Love her name because it isn't in the top five and it can't be shortened. Yes we call her Jules but she won't actually put that on her paper when she goes to school.

As for Caroline, we still had no name by month seven. Remember he had only ever said yes to Julia and we had no back up. So driving down the road one night I saw the name on the high school Marquis. "How about Caroline?" I got a simple yes once again. So Caroline is named after the number one state swimmer in Colorado. Caroline really can't be shortened unless you call her Carol. Note to everyone if you do that you are in big trouble:) I thought it was pretty unique as I had only ever had one Caroline in school. Well that was until Graham and I went to the Nutcracker and three of the sugarplums were Caroline. Oh well!

I love both my girls' names. Julia's middle name is Katherine. This is not only because it is my name but it is a family name on both sides. As for Caroline, her middle name was picked out at dinner right before we went to the hospital. It is one of my favorite names but was too popular to be her first name. It is also after Graham's cousin Emily who lives in Denver. We adore her and everything about her.

So if we have a third baby somewhere way down the road lets hope for a boy because I am not sure I can sell Graham on another girls name.