The Name

Okay, so I was trying to refrain from doing this. I'm not really sure of my reasons, other than I guess maybe being afraid it shows some bit of immaturity, or maybe caring too much what other people think, or maybe it was even the thought of mentioning our name to as few people to keep it more surprising when she gets here. But I am finding myself in a pickle, and have decided to cave in and ask for a consensus of opinions on our ideas for this new baby girls name.

I have mixed emotions about names in general- I can understand why some people think picking your child's name is like the most important thing, almost like it is their destiny or their legacy. Part of me thinks, yeah, it's a big deal, this person is going to have this name as their identity for their whole life. The other part of my says- It's a name! Every one makes it through life with whatever name they have, whether it's an amazing name that everyone loves or not. I have never been "in love" with my name and when I was younger, I could have thought of many other names I would have loved to have- which even those have changed with time- but the bottom line is I'm pretty sure my life has been the same life with the name Stephanie as it would have been with any other name. For example, I'm pretty sure my husband would have loved and married me even if my name was Ophelia- okay maybe not Ophelia- but you get what I mean haha =).

Even having said all that, it doesn't mean I haven't put a lot of thought into my kids names and obviously picking their name is a big deal. So here I am- looking for some advice. Since I never keep anything short and to the point let me tell you my long drawn out thoughts.

Ryan and I have always loved Hannah Grace as a double name- ever since we would have lighthearted conversations in high school about kids names. We also loved Bailey, which we decided against because Ryan's brother wanted that name too (as you can see my nieces name is Bailey=) When we found out Hannah was a girl we went to the car after our appointment and decided on Hannah Grace or Rylie (the other name we had considered- which I like especially with her daddy's name being Ryan- but we kind of figured it was really close to Bailey and we loved the timelessness of Hannah). So we decided in five minutes. With Bennett, we pretty much never even discussed other names. We both loved it from the start and the decision was made.With boy names, it seems like its a lot harder to find one we both like but once we do- it's pretty much a done deal.

Over the past couple years we came up with another girl name we really liked. Addison Lydia. I loved Addie for short and we pretty much for a while assumed if we had another girl, we would name her Addison (Addie). Then one night in the past year we were retalking about names for fun and came up with the one that we are mainly considering now...

Sadie Jane.

After using such a "classic" name as Hannah, I kind of wanted to do something more "fun and cute". We both think Sadie is super cute, and I began leaning more towards it after thinking maybe Addison is becoming just a little too popular and trendy- not to mention it is practically the same name as Madison, which is cute too, but I know about 15 little girls named Madison. SOOO roping myself back in to my point (I have to do that a lot, don't I?) We love Sadie and are thinking this will pretty much be her name, but here is my dilemma.... IS IT TOO MUCH A DOG'S NAME?

This is the one thing that is holding me back from plugging full force ahead with this name- I would LOVE some feedback!! If you are afraid to hurt my feelings (which you won't!) you can post anonymously if that makes you feel better =) It's not that I have to pick a name that everyone else is in love with (that's impossible, anyway) I just really don't want people to be going "Is she talking about her child or her dog?" Which I feel like I can justify by thinking- many names are people and dog names.... Chelsea, Maggie, Bailey, Sophie, Jake, Jackson, etc. etc. etc. That's normal right? Help!