Baby Names.

Well, I think we're done having babies.  Before you get all "never say never!" on me, I know.  We could change our minds and we have no plans to do anything permanent to prevent more kids right now, but I feel like we're done.  Trevor feels like we're done.  (And not just because Niko was a boy, don't get me started on that perfect family nonsense.)  Also, mind your own beeswax.  If we do change our minds some day (many years from now), I imagine we will start from scratch with names, so why not share our favorites for now?

I just can't name a baby until we meet.  I like having options and seeing their squishy face before choosing.  We decided to go with family (or family+friend for Niko) names for middle names which mostly made things easier, but did provide some restrictions.  Baby names have also been pretty top secret during pregnancies for us because everyone has an opinion and I'm just not interested.  The suspense is fun, too.

For Myra, our top girl names were Myra and Anissa.  Our top boy name was Silas, but we also liked Liam (though I really don't think we would have picked it).  We didn't get too into boy names since we found out Myra was a girl at 20 weeks.  Click here to read Myra's birth story.

For Niko, we did not find out the sex until he was born.  Our top girl name was Esme and top boy name was Niko (Nikolai), but Judah put up a good fight the last week or two even after he was born.  I struggled with names enough, I just kind of let it go once we had names we both liked.  Not knowing the sex definitely made this process more difficult.  Heck, I even got so desperate I wrote to Swistle!  See the link here.  I really loved, and still do, the names Rissa (girl) and Chester (boy), but Trevor didn't love either of them like I did, especially not the yucky teasing nickname that came to mind with Chester.  Click here to read Niko's birth story.

Fun fact about our kids' names that we didn't realize until we already decided we liked Niko (Nikolai) a lot and I did some Googling:

From the Latin Nicolaus, a derivative of the Greek Nikolaos (victory of the people), a compound name composed of the elements nikē (victory) and laos (the people). The name was borne by St. Nicholas, a 4th-century bishop of Myra who is regarded as the patron saint of Russia and Greece, and of children, sailors, and wolves.  (from Baby Name Wizard)

Oh, and their first initials are M and N, as in MN...as in Minnesota.  Filing that away for future tattoo ideas...

Throughout pregnancies, these are the other names we tossed around.  We wanted something unique, so anything "top 200" or "up and coming" was out.  Many of these names are pretty popular which is why they didn't make the cut.

Some favorite baby naming websites are: Swistle, Nymbler, Baby Name Wizard, Nameberry, and the good old Social Security site.  The book Cool Names for Babies was a fun and different read, too.

GIRLS
Myra
Esme (first choice girl name for Baby 2 thanks to Swistle suggestions)
Anissa (this was #1 for our first pregnancy and our second choice for Myra)
Delilah (the song Hey There Delilah was very special to us during our first deployment together)
Mila/Myla (this was Trevor's inspiration for Myra)
Zoe
Nell (second choice girl name for Baby 2 even though it's already being used in the family)
Eleanor
Emma

BOYS
Niko (Nikolai)
Silas (this was #1 since our first pregnancy but got too popular for us)
Liam
Percy (I still love this, but would have needed a longer version and wasn't sold on Percival)
Oliver
Everett
Judah (our initial thought for Niko. but after three hours we still just couldn't commit to it)
Noah
Chester (though it wouldn't have made the cut because people are cruel with nicknames)