Names...

I was thinking about the girls' names the other day and decided I wanted to write down why they are named what they are. Since this is basically our family scrapbook I thought this would be the best place for it. So here are the stories of how the girls got their names.


Hadley ElizabethFrom the minute we found out we were pregnant with Hadley we started talking names. We knew Elizabeth would probably be the middle name for a girl. It is a family name in both of our families. On my side it was my Grandma Sisson's middle name, my Aunt Janet's middle name and my middle name. On Mike's side it is his mom's middle name, his sister Tammy's middle name and his niece Rachel's middle name.
Then came the hard part on finding a first name we both agreed on. We are both a little picky. I had really liked the name Adley for some time but Mike just didn't care for it too much. After going through many name books one day Mike out of the blue asked what I thought about Hadley. I loved it! So we knew that if we had a girl, her name would be Hadley Elizabeth. After our 20 week sonogram we started calling her Hadley.

Hadley means a field of heather.
Elizabeth means consecrated to God.

I love the name Hadley and of course think it fits her perfectly. The kindergarten teacher in me loves it because it is pretty easy to spell and really can't be shortened to a nickname.

Jillian Ruth
With Jillian we started talking names again right away but had to come up with a boy and a girl name since we weren't finding out what we were having. We had a harder time agreeing on names this time as well. Especially a boys name. When we went to the hospital I still wasn't sure on a boys name. Good thing we had a girl :)
When we first started talking girls' names we talked about McKinley. My only complaint was it could be shortened and I don't like that. I think it is fine for people who plan on having their name shortened but I wanted my kids called what I named them. Must be the OCD and control issues coming out. So slowly McKinley and my next favorite Madalyn were crossed of the list. That left us without a girl's name. We then started looking through a name book and found Lillian. I liked that but wasn't sold. Then Mike said Jillian. I really liked the sound of Jillian and thought it was pretty. The only problem was it could be shortened. But the more I heard it the more I loved it and knew I would call her Jillian and figured most people would follow suit.
The middle name was an easy one for a girl. We knew that we wanted another family name and we both loved the name Ruth. This was Mike's Mom-mom's (Grandma) name.

Jillian means youthful.
Ruth means friend.

I love the name Jillian and think it fits her perfectly as well. Of course it fits into my kindergarten teacher rule of easy to spell and she will just have to explain that it is Jillian and won't be shortened. One out of two isn't bad :)