Adelaide Gets a Name

I both love and hate naming my children. I find it a huge responsibility to pick the name that will represent a person for their whole life, and to do it when they are just a tiny little soul, brand new to the world and their personality is still almost completely unknown to you. David and I have really struggled to name both Zara and Adelaide (though we've had no problem picking boy names....if we ever have a boy) and neither of them had a decided name before they were born. Zara was my top choice before she was born, but we didn't settle on anything until after she was born. With Adelaide, I had a list of names, but no clear favorites. I did, however, already know that her middle name would be Grace, which is a virtue I love and thought would be a nice complement to Zara's middle name of Hope.

I believe everyone should be given a name that has significance, whether for the meaning of the name itself or because it is a family name or the name of another important figure. Since we didn't have any family names we wanted to use, I had mostly chosen names based on their meanings. My top choices were Sophie (wisdom), Charlotte (strong woman), and Naomi (beautiful/delightful), but I was hesitant to use them since they've become very popular lately and I wanted to avoid an excessively popular name. (Sophia was the #1 girl name in 2012.) David's top choice was Orla (Gaelic for golden queen) and while it is certainly not breaking the top 100 list of names, it felt a little too unusual and not quite right.

During my last trimester, I kept a list of all our potential names and their meanings written on a white index card. It wasn't a long list because there weren't many names that David and/or I both liked. After Adelaide was born,  and we were all resting on the birth center's large bed together, David pulled out the index card and started looking over the names. I glanced at the list and immediately felt drawn to the name Adelaide but pushed aside the thought since I never thought David would go for that name. It's one that I threw on there because I've always liked old-fashioned names and I liked its meaning: noble. I had also been contemplating the name Ada (which also means noble) after the 19th century mathematician (and Lord Bryon's daughter) Ada Lovelace, who is often credited as the being the first computer programmer.I liked the idea of naming my daughter after such an intelligent and pioneering woman.

It came as some surprise when David then said that he was leaning toward Adelaide. Just like me, when he looked at the list, the name Adelaide jumped out at him. He even insists that its written in darker ink than the other names, even though I wrote most of the names with the same pen.

Adelaide is of German origin (and David has a lot of German heritage) and according to a baby name website, "This name was imported to England by Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, the wife of William IV of Great Britain. She gave her name to the South Australian city of Adelaide. In contemporary literature of the time, Adelaide was frequently used as a name for upper-class, elegant women. St Adelaide of Italy lived in the tenth century. She was heir to the throne of Italy and married Otto the Great, Holy Roman Emperor. She was made a saint on account of her good deeds towards the poor. Adelaide of Aquitaine was the wife of French king Hugh Capet, the founder of the Capetian dynasty."

But of course, when I think of the name Adelaide, I immediately think of this song from the musical Guys and Dolls: 

We had really hoped that we'd be inspired after the baby's birth to know what to name her and we were. In some ways, I can't believe we decided on her name so quickly or both came to the same conclusion so easily. It still took a day or two for it to feel right....and it still feels a little awkward to say her name, but I remember I felt that way about Zara's name as well. I think Adelaide Grace is a beautiful name and fits her well.