I'm weak. I can't keep a secret. I had this brilliant plan to keep our lady's name a secret until we announced her arrival. However, I'm so dang excited about it I've been dying to spill the beans since we chose it!
So after begging Matt nearly every day, he told me he didn't care either way if people knew or didn't. So here is her naming story :]
When I originally posted about choosing a baby name, I kind of lied. The name we had then is not actually her name. I was too anxious that it wasn't the right name & questioning it frequently. This was enough for me to decide this was not her name. That name was Ella. We still love the name, but don't love the sound of "Ella Owens" [kind of choppy]. I also didn't like that some college friends still call me Bella. Mama Bella & baby Ella. Did not love that at all either. And lastly, both my friend & brother have dogs name Ellie... a little too close for comfort. So in the end, Ella became Otter again.
People were saying "wait until she is here! you'll know when you see her!" I'm sure that's amazing advice for some people & I can see how it could work. But for this obsessive planner... not happening. So one night my loving husband willingly laid in bed with me while I read name after name from the world's longest list of baby names. Most of them were impractical, but we needed inspiration! Then I saw it. A name I had heard only once before when meeting my best friend's roommate, & had LOVED it then. I had never considered using it for my own child [this was a few years ago, before I even had a ring on my finger]. The second I read it was like a breath of fresh air. I told Matt [with a little too much excitement] how much I loved the name & he seemed to like it too.
Before I got my hopes up too high, we had to check the meaning of the name. When we first found out we were pregnant [much to our surprise], we decided that a name meaning "gift" or "blessing" would be a perfect fit. We had found other names we like, but when we saw that they meant "bitter cow" or "lazy", we no longer loved it so much. So when the meaning of this special name was "abundant blessings down-flow from above" When I saw that, I couldn't imagine her with any other name.
& that's how we named our sweet girl, Jori Marie Owens
[Jori comes from Jordan [or Jordon, Matt's middle name] in reference to the Jordan river, which is where "down-flowing" comes from. Marie has always been my choice for my first daughter's middle name. It's my middle name, my mom's, & great grandma's]
I love the meaning. I love carrying on the family name of Marie. & I love the uniqueness, but not strangeness, of her first name. I can't wait to meet our little Jori.
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