The Name Game

So as it turns out, naming a child is much harder than I ever anticipated. This would be because it's not just up to me... there is another person I never factored in... my husband. Unfortunately, we don't exactly have what you call the same "taste" in names. In fact, we really aren't even in the same ball park when it comes to names. As Ryan put it, I like "trendier" more unique (not weird) names and he likes "safe" more traditional names. For example, I liked Blair and Blake whereas Ryan liked Claire and names such as Kate and Emily. Let me explain... every girl I have ever known who was named Brittney or Ashley hated it because there were a million other Brittneys and Ashleys. I didn't want my baby growing up thinking the same thing. With all of that being said I will say the things that Ryan and I did agree on when it came to what we wanted in a name. We wanted something classy and sophisticated and we wanted something age appropriate no matter what age she was- aka we didn't want to give her an old lady name, and that it needed to be no more than 2 syllables-because Gottfredson is such a mouth full. It was also important to Ryan that the meaning of the name was something good (turns out Blair and Blake both have super lame meanings). So how did we end up with Hailey you ask? Well let me tell you. Early on in my pregnancy with her Ryan threw that name out and I quickly turned it down. I thought it was too common. So we let it go. Instead we kept making lists of names that were our favorites and comparing. I will also say that Ryan felt like he couldn't name our baby without meeting her first. He wanted to go to the hospital with a few names, see her, and then decide what name would fit her best. I'm actually really glad we did this because the name we thought we were going to name her just didn't fit once we actually saw her. But I'm getting ahead of myself. So months passed and we still couldn't agree on anything. I was still stuck on Blake and Ryan was stuck on Claire. Then in January Ryan went out to see his parents. He told his dad about the name Claire and THANKFULLY his dad shot it down. Turns out he didn't like a guy with that name at all. And I didn't like it because I wasn't on the friendliest of terms with a girl named Claire in high school... So thanks Grandpa Gottfredson for putting that name in the grave! But unfortunately for me he also shot down Blair and Blake... I kinda saw that one coming though. So in all reality we weren't any closer to getting a name. I will say that another criteria for the name was that it had to flow with the rest of her name. Ryan didn't care about a middle name, and in fact was ok not having a middle name. I think that's kinda odd and I wanted to give her something in remembrance of my mom so I picked to have her middle name Eileen. That is my mom's middle name as well as mine. Around January, Februaryish we started making some progress. I can't remember how or who came up with the name Avery but one of us did and we BOTH actually liked it. It was not something we were sure about though still but I was pretty set on it for awhile. Then in February, while Ryan was in Utah for his mom's funeral, I think one of his siblings threw out the name Emory. Again, surprisingly enough, we both liked it. We now had 2 names that we could both agree on. But let me back track... one day while sitting in church I was super stressing over the fact that we didn't have a name picked out for our baby. With so many people, family mostly... ok my side of the family mostly, harping us constantly about a name, I was really feeling the pressure and feeling like we would never come up with anything. A few weeks earlier Ryan sent me a blog post from a friend of his telling all about how he and his wife picked the name of their baby girl. Basically they say the name just popped into both of their heads and they think the baby decided what her name should be. I needed this to happen to me! I needed my baby or Heavenly Father to put her name in my head because we weren't making progress on it on our own. So I said a little prayer and basically begged Heavenly Father to tell me what her name should be. Then I did a totally appropriate Sunday sacrament meeting activity and got my phone out. Yep, I did. I googled top 100 baby names and started reading through them. I read through all of them and nothing stuck UNTIL... I got to the name Hailey. Totally cliche to say this but it is true. I got this feeling that I honestly don't even know how to put into words. I had this really warm almost enlightening feeling once I read that name. I thought this really odd since I had thrown that name out already and so early on in this process. After my enlightenment, I handed my phone over to Ryan and told him to pick out his favorite name on the list. When he was done reading the names he told me that he had actually picked out 4. The first one was Claire, but that name was already thrown out so he said his next first favorite would be Hailey. That was it. At that point, deep down, I had a feeling that we needed to search no further and that Heavenly Father had answered my prayer. There was only one hang up. I didn't want the name Hailey. Like I said before I thought it was too common. I thought it was cute, just not different enough. But we kept it around and added it to the list. About a week before baby got here Ryan gave his class their midterm. The very last question on the test was "what should we name our baby?" with a list of 5 names: Hailey, Emory, Avery, Hadley, and Blake (oh, we threw around the name Hadley too). Ryan got the results back and they are as follows: Hailey was the favorite, Emory and Avery were tied, Blake and then Hadley. I was pretty shocked actually that Hailey was the favorite. Fast forward to delivery day. When she was born neither one of us said it at first but we both had the thought that she just wasn't an Emory. And then another weird thing happened to me. I remember just minutes after she was born looking over at her getting weighed and cleaned off and thinking to myself "that's my daughter, Hailey." This SHOCKED me! I had been trying to resist the name Hailey and we definitely hadn't named her yet. So why the heck did I think that?! I can only think of one answer and that is that she knew what her name was supposed to be. Throughout the next 2 days at the hospital I would randomly have thoughts that referred to her as Hailey and each time I would have to remind myself that we hadn't picked a name for her yet. My brother and dad also threw in their opinions and voted for Hailey. If I remember correctly some of Ryan's family liked that name too. But finally on Thursday, the day before we were leaving the hospital I asked Ryan what he thought because it needed to get done. Kinda casually discussed it and I finally told him all of the weird times the name Hailey kept popping into my brain. And we just basically said ok, Hailey it is. I wasn't about to argue with divine inspiration! I will say that I fought it long and hard and tried to resist the name but now I can't imagine a different name for her. It fits her perfectly and I think it is very cute. And it fits all of our criteria! I'm glad we... or she... or Heavenly Father, or whoever it was, picked that name for her. I love you Hailey Eileen Gottfredson! Now if you don't mind I'm going to start making a list of boy names and girl names so we have a head start next time...