Eureka! (Finally)

I know, I know. Don't say anything, I feel bad.

Instead of blogging I've been spending a lot of time gazing mistily at this picture of sweetness...and wondering...what the heck her name is!!
Before she was born, we had names sorted, believe it or not.
A boy would have been Peter Patrick or Patrick Peter ( for my late uncle and of course my husband and all the multitudes of Paddys in our family)
For a girl, I was quite determined to call her Edith Benedicta Teresa, for St Teresa Benedicta of the cross
Edith Stein was beautiful and brilliant as well as saintly. And Jewish of course, which is almost as good as being Irish.

I'm really drawn to all the Teresa's. The three carmelite ones and Mother Teresa. So I kind of wanted to work something Teresian in there.
So at first she was Edith. But calling her Edith didn't work. It's rather Teutonic as names go. It doesn't seem to fit with our line up.
Then my uncle Seamus suggested Blathin. You have to hear it said, it sounds prettier than it looks. It means 'little flower' so that would have been a neat association with St Therese.
That was vetoed pretty quickly by the big fellas in the house who just didn't like it at all.

So then we spent a while calling her Marie-Clare. But that's the name of a magazine here, so after a few days she became Mary-Clare. ( She was born on the 13th October, a Fatima date, so we were had been thinking of working Mary or Lucia in there)

My husband had been tossing Aibhlinn around for a while, but I wasn't convinced. It was a name that we had considered before when we were expecting the twins. It's a soft, pretty name.
In Irish the 'bh ' is said as a 'v' ( like 'Siobhan') so the name is said 'Ave lin'.
It means 'longed for child' which is apposite. But I really wanted a saints name so that, like all the others, she could have a feast day. And there isn't a saint Aibhlinn ( or Evelyn which I think is the English equivalent).
Eventually we decided to give her a double barrelled first name and after calling her Mary-Aibhlinn for a bit, we finally settled on Marie-Aibhlinn ( the 'Marie' is said as 'marry' as in Marianne or Marie-louise)
We kept it quiet for a bit though, because having called her Edith and then Mary-Clare, it took a little adjustment to get used to calling her Marie-Aibhlinn.
I didn't want to post her name only to change it again.
So I just laid doggo for a bit while the name grew on me.
Now I just love it. Her name fits her in a way that the others didn't.

And in a fit of name greed, we gave her a double barreled second name too. After all, if long, impossible to remember names are good enough for the crowned heads of Europe, then they are good enough for Her Majesty the Baby.
So now she rejoices in being called Marie-Aibhlinn Teresa Benedicta.
But we'll probably be calling her some silly pet name or other eventually, we always do.

Goodness. I feel like I've blethered on far too long here about the name choosing process, but really, I never imagined it would take this long.
I'm sorry to have left you all in suspenders, but it was bad enough having to tell my parents a new name to call her every few days without having to re announce her name to blogsville too.

Now we have to go and register her.

And as a post script, and for no reason at all other than to please Honor who loves it when she sees photos of herself in one of her many hats ( she wears them indoors and sometimes more than two at a time) here is Honor in a hat: