What's in a Name?

A Starbucks barrista's attempt to understand the name "Paul" on our order

Picking out baby names is just about my favorite part about having a baby-except for actually having the baby! I look at baby names even when I'm not pregnant and frequent websites like nameberry.com and nymbler.com to follow the baby naming trends. So, of course, I started thinking about baby names about 2 minutes after I got the positive test! However, for two teachers, naming a child is hard! We've had lots of students between us and some names leave us with not so fond associations. This time we've also had to figure what names work decently in both Portuguese and English. Of course, we have no idea how long we'll be here, but we do need to be mindful of how common names can have different associations in other languages. For example, the classics Ruth and Rosie are pronounced hoo-chee and ho-sie respectively in Brazil-not the image we're going for! One of our favorites, Annabel, is a type of wedge heel in Portuguese and that makes us reluctant to use it. So now we're focused on a name that works in both languages easily and I think we've found our winner. Right now (and we've been known to change this at the last minute) we're planning on naming this baby girl Stella. Stella's been one of my favorites since I had Sophie and the fact that it is a known name in English and Portuguese is a bonus. Never mind that Tori Spelling used it-and we're certainly not following Ellen Pompeo's lead and using Stella Luna (a favorite read aloud around here!). We have a middle name picked out but we're still fine tuning a part of it so we'll keep that quiet for now. As of now, come June we'll have Noah, Sophie, and Stella Kasky!