The Name post

Cams did this post about naming your children and I have a long story, so here we go:

My requirements for childrens’ names were this:

1. They must be language neutral i.e. sound pretty much the same in Afrikaans and English
2. They must be virtually impossible to shorten to something stupid or rude like ‘Lala’ or ‘Tinkywinky’
3. They must be French-ish (French Hugenot In-Laws)
4. They mustn’t be naff like ‘Petal’ or ‘Stone’ or ‘Os’

DH declared that we would not under any circumstances find out the sex with our Firstborn. Which I very reluctantly agreed to.

Which of course meant that I immediately assumed we were having a girl. And meant that I had a list of at least 20 girl names and a single boy name. I think it was Nicholas or something. Our semi- final girl name was Daniela. After much head scratching and deliberation after our son was born we had the aha! Moment and decided to call him Daniel, which was also a family name on hubby’s side. Still love the name.

When we found out we were having twins we found out they were girls very early on and hence had an even longer list of girl names second time around. My pre-requisites here were the same as above and that the names should not sound alike or rhyme with each other.

We agreed on Isabel very early on, have just always loved the name and as it turns out, my Great Grand Mother had the same name! So, 2 family names and we were stuck for the 3rd one.

One of my friends from Bookclub was called Mignon and I just thought it was such a lovely French name and so feminine. We finally agreed on Mignon just as I was rolled into theatre to have my C-section. I even knew how they were lying and because of the way they were kicking inside my tummy (Mignon softly and Isabel like a cowboy), when they took them out they already had their names.

Which they all live up to!