Nadia's Naming Poll

Whenever we are awaiting the entrance of a new baby into our family, two primary and frequent discussion topics at the dinner table include: 1) Is the baby a boy or a girl (or twins...)? and 2) What will we name the baby? Of course everyone has an opinion - Victoria is still praying for twins this time around, even though we are quite sure there is only one munchkin in there!

Thus the reason for Nadia's poll that has been going on for the last several weeks. We've been discussing several names as a family (of course, it is Dad and Mom who make the final decisions...), but the names on the poll were a consensus of our favorite picks to date.

Here are the poll results, along with a little bit of an explanation why we like that particular name:

BOY'S NAMES

Timothy Paul - 17%

This is Tim's name - and we think it would be neat to name a baby boy after his daddy. If we chose this name, we'd call the baby "Paul." It is also a good Biblical name - excellent role models for our young'un to follow.

Paul Timothy - 39%

Here, we'd still be naming the baby after his daddy, but wouldn't be using the middle name as his given name... and we'd avoid some confusion as baby grows up (just ask Richelle's dad and brother, who both have the first name of Richard). And, of course, there is still the Biblical significance.

Caleb Stephen - 47%

Two incredibly faithful to the end Biblical men, something we pray for all of our children. Besides that, it sounds really nice, too.

GIRL'S NAMES

You probably noticed that all of the girl's names we are currently considering are variations on a theme. Here's what we are thinking. As we've named all of our children, there has been a common "battleground" between Tim and Richelle. Richelle prefers names that are a bit unusual. Tim prefers what he likes to call "bread and butter" names. So we are always trying to find a compromise between the two - be it an unusual middle name, a slightly different spelling, etc., etc., etc. This is Tim's little sister's name, has good Biblical precedent, and after we started considering it, found out that is was also the name of a dear friend and our kids' favorite adopted "aunt" here in Niger. The only question has been how do we want to modify the name just a little bit... and how different do we really want the name to be? We are still very much undecided...

Mary Michelle Elysabeth - 15%

Mary Lynn Elysabeth - 17%

Mary Elysabeth - 73%

Since this was Nadia's poll, she wanted to make sure that everyone knew her choices. She was quite excited that her favorite names were the poll's winning choices, too. She likes Caleb Stephen for a boy and Mary Elysabeth for a girl.

Please feel free to continue commenting - no guarantee that we will take any advice or suggestions offered - but it is fun, interesting and informative to hear what people have to say.

And stay tuned for the next poll. It is Anna's turn this next time, so don't be surprised if it has something to do with horses!