Tagged for the Name Game

I was tagged by both Stephanie from Daily Smiles and Lori from Banana Pants to tell the story of how we came up with our children's names. I don't know that it is that exciting of a story but I will do my best.

Abbey Nicole: We didn't know if she would be a boy or a girl so we had to come up with one of each. For a boy, my favorite name is Michael but I didn't want a Mike so it was going to be a middle name. We really struggled with coming up with boy names. My husband didn't want anything too "soap opera-ish" and I didn't want anything too basic like Jim or John. We ended up deciding on Brandon Michael but it never felt like it was right. As for our girl name, I knew I liked the more old fashioned names versus the current trendy ones. I don't even know where I came up with the name Abbey, I just knew that I didn't want Abigail but loved Abbey. Her middle name, Nicole, I copied from one of my best friend's daughter whose middle name was Nicole and it just sounded good with Abbey. Since I was having her actual name be Abbey (not short for Abigail) I decided it needed to spelled "ey" instead of "ie" because "ie" seemed like a nickname to me. I love her name but there are two negatives. EVERYONE and their mother would ask me "Is it short for Abigail?" and all the little personalized items that the kids want are spelled Abby.

Emma Celeste: Again, we didn't find out if she was a boy or girl so had to come up with one of each. Still wanting to use Michael we agreed on Luke Michael but again, not feeling in love with the name. For a girl name, I wanted to find another old fashioned name and somehow came across Emma. I can still picture my Grandma wrinkling her nose up at that name. But I loved it. As for her middle name, Celeste, she was named after a girlfriend I used to work with who passed away from cancer. I just loved the way the names flowed together.

Ella Grace: This time we decided to find out if the baby was a boy or girl since she was our surprise child and we had NOTHING for a baby!! Of course we had to continue with the old fashioned names but pretty quickly the name Ella came to mind. One of the other names I was contemplating was Grace so we could call her Gracie. When I was trying to think of a middle name for her, my step mom (who hates to be called that but I am using it for clarification purposes) said "what about Ella Grace?" That was the end of it....I LOVED that name. Here is where it gets intersting. We decided on her name while we were in the process of Ella being diagnosed with Down Syndrome. We were waiting on our amnio results and my cousin was googling the name Ella Grace to find a cute little clothing store she had heard about nearby with that name. What she came up with was a blog called "Ella Grace with the Pretty Face" When I clicked on that and saw a little Ella Grace with Down Syndrome, right then and there, I knew that my amnio was going to come back positive for Ds. God was preparing me in so many ways for her diagnosis but this was the one that gave me my definite answer. So from that point on, I knew that the name Ella Grace was the absolute perfect name for her.