On Naming Baby Girl

Naming a baby is hard. At least it is for me. I've never been the one who has all her children's names predetermined since my own childhood. I did try and convince my aunt to name my cousin Danika when I was 7, but later fulfilled my dream in 6th grade when I had to parent a 'sugar baby' for a week and named her that. When we were pregnant with Heath we were in the wonderful community of Pomfret Hall surrounded by creative college students who offered their plethora of suggestions and helped the naming process to be a fun one through our Baby Madness game (flashback), following along the NCAA tournament.

This time around we waited again until learning the baby's gender so that we'd only have to work half as hard (that's German efficiency for you). So back in mid October when we learned she would be a she, we brainstormed a list of about 30 names that J and I both liked for one reason or another. We've been processing aloud these names and slowly- slowly narrowing them down. We gave 2-3 names a 'trial run' for a few days and saw how it felt to call baby girl by that name. This month we've reached a place of confidence that we know what her name will be, and have enjoyed connecting even more with her as we get to stop saying 'the baby' and finally call her Reese.

Reese means ardent; fiery. There were some other names I liked whose meanings were more in the peace and calm category. But this girl has not been that. She is even more active than her brother in utero (which I did not think possible). When we saw her on the 4D scan while we had our heart specialist appointment last month I just knew she had the face and spirit of a Reese.

If you were blessed to know my Grama Jean Grama Jean, there will be no guessing on why we've decided to offer Reese's middle name as Jean. I feel beyond blessed to have been born into a family of strong women, whom my Grama is one of on the Williams side. The people who have called me Lyndsy Jean in my life are affirming a very special heritage that I pray Reese will also know as she is raised in this family. My mom and I reflect on some of 'Jean's genes' we inherited: the gift of encouragement and being a prayer, thrifty creativity in stretching a meal or household items like grocery bags, a love for finding great deals at thrift stores. Mostly I pray that Reese will have a heart like my Grama's who faithfully loved God and fiercely loved and cared for people.

Disclaimer: for those wondering, we are not going for a theme of candy bar names for our kids here, it just so happens that the names and spellings of them we like correlate to delicious sweet treats too! We have given Reese a nickname of Buttercup already and Heath prefers to call her "by her full name, Reese Buttercup Manz." In the same way he believes his alternative full name is "Heath Goofball Manz."