What's in a name?

We picked a name out for baby girl. This time was much harder than it was with Claire. When Joe and I were newlyweds he took me to go see the movie, The Time Traveler's Wife. I fell in love with the character Claire Absher. I loved everything about her and the movie. So naturally I fell in love with the name Claire. The first time I mentioned it to Joe he said it sounded like an "old lady name". Gee thanks.  But I waited a few weeks, mentioned it again, and he LOVED it. The day we found out I was pregnant with her I knew she was a girl and I knew her name was supposed to be Claire Marie (Marie also being my middle name). It felt right to both of us so for the entire pregnancy she was Claire. We never changed our minds or had any "back up" names just in case she didn't look like a Claire at birth. She just simply was going to be Claire.

When I found out I was pregnant with baby #2 we were totally stumped on baby names. I pulled out my handy-dandy list of baby names I've kept in my journal since I was in high school, added a few names to the list but none of them worked. We thought Cameron Carter for a boy would be nice since both names were family names (Cameron is Joe's Grandma's maiden name and Carter is my mother's maiden name). But we also had a few other names like Colton or Lucas that we were discussing. Girl names were even worse. I wanted a traditional name to go along with Claire. I am very particular about the feel of a name and am definitely not a fan of trendy or made up names. So our conversations usually went something like this:

 If it's a girl should her name be Alice? 

No, how about Eliza. 

Nope.

 Uhm, how about Lydia?

Definitely not.

Isla?

No!

Sophia?

NO!!!

Ugh! Round and round we went. We finally decided on a few top choices. One of them was Aubrey and I thought Aubrey Ann would be a perfect name...until I said it out loud. If you say it fast enough it comes out Aww-bree-ann. Ha it would be like my name hidden in a name. Haha we laughed for a long time about that one and it was instantly crossed off our list. Eliza, Jane, Alice, Lacey, and Lydia were all names that we kept bringing up over and over again only to be rejected by one or both of us. 

Well as has been the norm so far I found my perfect name in a movie. Well, a tv show actually. Netflix has been my best friend this pregnancy while I've been sick and I started watching a show called One Tree Hill. I was totally sucked in to the drama and the characters, one of my favorites being a girl named Peyton. It wasn't until I made it through about 5 seasons that I started to love the name as well. I mentioned it to Joe once and he just kind of shrugged his shoulders, "I don't love it. It's kind of different from the names we've been deciding between." Exactly. That's why I liked it. It was different and for some reason I could NOT get that name out of my head. So I mentioned it to my mom. As soon as I said it she went ballistic! She LOVED the name and insisted that I use it if this baby turned out to be a girl. I was relieved that she loved it as much as I did. For me, it confirmed that it was that perfect name but I still didn't have Joe's approval. I thought Peyton Elizabeth would be the perfect name I had been looking for and it kind of added to that "feeling" I had that this baby was to be another girl. 

So I waited a week and casually mentioned the name again to Joe but this time adding on the middle name. I was so nervous he would say no again but you know what? He loved it! Haha it felt like deja vu. But the name just felt so right, so perfect and my sweet husband agreed. When our ultrasound was over and we found out our sweet baby was a girl, the ultrasound tech asked if we had a name picked out for her. Joe proudly announced her name would be Peyton Elizabeth Reed. And it has definitely stuck. 

I seriously can't wait until September to meet our little Peyton.