What's in a name.

OUR LITTLE BUNDLE OF JOY!

When you're having a baby everyone always is curious about what you will name your child. Ginger and I had no problem coming up with boy names while having some difficulty with girl names. And at first it seemed like we had an easy solution to that since our week 12 Level II ultrasound showed that the "genital tubercle angle" was pointing (literally) towards us having a boy. But we discovered at our week 20 standard ultrasound the we were in fact having a little girl. So it was back to the drawing board to come up with girl names.

Her middle name was settled right from the start. My mother's name was Ann and Ginger's mother's middle name is Ann. So our little girl would have Ann as her middle name. But coming up with her first name would prove to be quite an ordeal.

A few names we liked were either too trendy or currently over-used (e.g. Sydney, Sophie). Many others were already in use by friends and family since Ginger and I are nearly the last couple (in our age-range) to finally reproduce.

Then there were names that one of us loved and the other hated. I loved "Ripley" from Sigourney Weaver's heroic character in the Alien movies, but Ginger shot that down because she thought we'd be looked at as "sci-fi geeks" (doesn't she know that she did in fact marry one?). One of Ginger's favorites was the name "Ruby", but for some reason I couldn't get past the fact that it reminded me of the little girl on the Cosby Show (yes I know that her character's name was really "Rudy").

There were other cute names like "Sadie" & "Lola" that were ruined for me by well-known classics by The Beatles and The Kinks. Just couldn't have my daughter's name tainted by songs about harlots & transvestites.

Through all the possibilities, in the end we had two names we both really liked. One was a name that came to mind near the beginning of our search based upon Natalie Portman's character's name in "The Professional" - Matilda. It was a name I had always liked and it was also the same name that Ginger's mother suggested on her own a few months later as a name she liked. The other name was (of course) Scarlet. The two "T" version (Scarlett) is best known as being used by the main character from "Gone With the Wind" - Scarlett O'Hara and the modern day actress - Scarlett Johansson. But Ginger and I liked the single "T" version since it was different and it also is the name of a song that Ginger heard when she first thought that Scarlet would be a good name. On her way to work one morning on her XM Satellite radio she heard the little-known 1981 U2 song entitled "Scarlet". It is a lovely mostly instrumental song from the October album that occasionally chants one lyric over and over - "Rejoice". And for all the trouble we went through to get her here and the miracle that she was from conception AND her scary birth - we indeed have much to rejoice about! Plus for anyone that knows me and the fact that I've been a HUGE U2 fan for 25 years - that really seems like a perfect tie-in.

However right up until her birth Ginger and I still really liked both names a lot. And since we leaned towards one or the other from week to week, we decided to wait until she was born to see if she was more of a Scarlet or a Matilda.

On the day of her birth as Ginger and I were in the labor & delivery room waiting for the induction to take (before all the trauma occurred), both of us discussed that we were leaning towards Scarlet. Then when the bottom dropped out of everything shortly after 5:30pm and I was in the Operating Room watching our wonderful Neonatologist Dr. Walden and her team get our little girl to start breathing, the nurses asked what would be her name. Another L&D nurse mentioned that we had two names and we wanted to see her first. When asked what the two names were I mentioned both and EVERYONE in the OR immediately said "Oh she's a Scarlet for sure!".

From the start the only real issue I had with Scarlet was in my trying to think ahead about other kids teasing her by making fun of her name with things like "Scar" (as part of Scarlet) or "Scary Scarlet". But then because of the super "scary" manner in which she came into the world, and the nice little "scar" that her mommy was going to have from her surgeries - EVERYTHING truly seemed perfect for her to be named Scarlet (including the Scarlet red color she was in places when she first started to pink-up from the initial oxygen).

So there you have it! Miss Scarlet Ann Shockley is a perfect name - just as perfect as she is!