And Her Name Is...

London Paige Ueckert- Whew! That was a task. Who ever knew there was so much effort that went into selecting a name. But I guess when you are forced to do it you begin to realize how important it truly is because it will be with your child the rest of their days. What if they become a movie star or a musician or a politician? It must be a good, solid, classy name- a name that is not boring and yet not totally bizare. One of those names that people say..."Wow, that's a cool name... Where does it come from?" Unfortunately London's answer might not be so cool..."Uh, my parents found it in a book titled 60,000 Baby Names and it was listed under the section- Names of Popular Kids." (Which by the way was not at all why we chose it but I just thought that was kind of funny...especially because it was listed one name below our friends daughter named Mackenzie and we always joke about them being double trouble at school here in EDH). But my point being, a name is so important and so hard to decide on for so many reasons.

From the time I can remember, Paul and I had come up with the name Makaela. We talked about it for years...literally. We both loved it and would joke about my tummy after a big meal and say, "Well, Makaela ate well tonight." I would stick it out extra far and pretend I was pregnant...my have times changed...and apparently so have names! So needeless to say, we always agreed that if we had a girl we would name her Makaela...until I got pregnant. Something about it being the real deal kind of makes you take a step back and think about a name and if you are truly in love with it. Well, ultimately I wasn't. So we (actually I) began the search in a book loaned to us by one of my best friends. I went page by page and mainly focused on boy names because once again everyone was certain it was a boy. But, from time to time I would flip through the girl section and write down a name or two that struck me. There was also a fun section of the book that categorized names such as "Sure to be the Class Clown" or "Future Politician" or "Names People Make Fun of". In that area I found London, listed under "Names for Popular Kids". Instantly, I shouted it out to Paul and said I LOVED it. He wasn't so sure at first but he also didn't turn his nose up which was a rare occassion during the selection process. Immediately I looked it up. Definition- Place Name, Capital of Great Britain (That sounded strong, classy and unique to me) It also stated that it was a unisex name that could be used for boys or girls. I only liked it for a girl but that instantly became my one and only name. As the days went by Paul began to like it more and more and eventually it became our first pick. So on judgement day when we found out that boy was a girl she became London Ueckert...middle name TBD.

After sharing the name with everyone the typical next question was, What about a middle name? We had not made it that far but soon after we found out I began the search for a perfect middle name. Paul said he didn't have much preference on a middle name as long as it sounded good...Ha! I should have known. Picking the darn middle name was more tough than picking the first. Back to my book I went in search of names and I began to write down options including names we had originally picked as first names. Paul instantly vetoed almost all of them including all the original first names we picked because he wanted to save them in case we had a second girl. We talked about family names but couldn't come up with any that rolled off the tounge between London and Ueckert. We were stumped. We had people giving us suggestions and people teasing us about chosing Paula as a middle name to play off Paul's name which is actually William Paul. People teased us about using the middle name Bridge. HA! HA! I wonder how many times she will get that dumb joke in the course of her life. Of course then you have to think about initials. I liked Olivia for a middle name but her initials would by LOU. No thanks. We don't need a boys name for her monogrammed towels. So finally this past weekend on a long and boring drive to Ripon we finally decided to talk about the latest selections for middle names and to pick one once and for all. I ran down my top three, McKay, Presley, Grace. I really wasn't that sold on any of them but Paul said of the three he liked McKay the best so we could go with that. It just wasn't right though and I didn't want to settle. So, I went back to our first names list again because we had both LOVED Paige as a first name before we came upon London. I said, "What about Paige? We both loved it and it sounds great with London." You have to be willing to give it up for the next time around...IF we even have another girl. He thought about it for a minute and said he really liked the sound of it so he was willing to give it up. So right there on HWY 99 between Elk Grove and Ripon she became London Paige Ueckert. Not a horribly sentimental story but I have heard worse. So her initials are LPU(I am hoping there is not a Lower Pennsylvania University she will have to share the glory with). But anyway, I would like to call her LP or Lo (pronounced Low) for short. Yep! I quite like that. Plus I figure if she makes it super famous some day she could drop the middle and last name and just be London...kind of like Madonna but way better :-)