Another Postcard from Shirley: So what's in a name anyway?

Many of you asked if we had a name picked out throughout our pregnancy and our standard answer was - No.

This was pretty true. We didn't agree on many names - luckily we only had to agree on one. I would toss names out as suggestions and get some of the funniest looks. Honest, they weren't that weird, I'm a traditional name kind of person. We both wanted something that we would call them on an every day basis - we didn't want to give them one name and call them something else. I'm drawn to short names. Classic names. Names that have some meaning. We (I) thought about using a family name, but we didn't agree on any of those.

Here's a conversation from one morning when I was about 6 or 7 months pregnant -

A- I shouldn't tell you this but...

K- What? Was I snoring again? (my constant fear towards the end of pregnancy)

A- I had a dream that we named her Anna Noel.

K- Do you like it? (I liked it.)

A- Yea, I like it.

K- Do we have a name?

A- I think so.

So that day I Googled it of course - no weird results came up. I also wrote it - it looked good. I wrote her initials and her monogram to make sure they didn't spell something awful or embarrassing. I also said it a million and one times. Did I like it? Did it work with our last name? Could I imagine saying, whispering, yelling it, cheering it,etc. Yes, Yes, and Yes!!

I think the best part about this name is the meaning. I didn't look at meanings to pick a name, but at the same time I was always interested in the meaning of names I liked. So, what does Anna mean? Depends on where you look for an exact definition, but grace is always invovled.