The Name Game

ARG! I am so disgruntled. Paul is disgusted. We are both POed! You know what Pier One did?! They named a piece of furniture the "Emmeline Cafe" (click here to see it). It is a storage cabinet made in Indonesia (it comes in blue AND white). Ack! I couldn't believe it when my mom told me this afternoon. She was just flipping through her Pier One catalog and there it was! Paul wants to know if we can protest...and I think we should!
It is interesting how we think we own this name; that it belongs to us and only us. But if you consider how difficult and time consuming it is to find the perfect baby name, of course we feel like we own it. If we could copyright it, I think we would. Can we?
As every parent knows, picking out a name for your child is a very difficult process. There are a lot of things to consider. Here are the basic rules (or at least our basic rules):
1. Pick a name that is different but is not too weird.
2. The name should not be too baby-ish as your child will have to use this name when he or she is an adult (i.e. We had considered Kaylee, but thought that it was too cutesie for an adult woman).
3. The name should have some significance for you; possibly a family name or a variation thereof.
4. The name should not be too hard to pronounce.
5. Don't pick anything that can be made into an embarrassing nickname or initials that will spell out a bad or weird word.
6. Mom and dad must both agree. (This was a very hard rule. Paul vetoed everything but suggested nothing).
So, here is how we decided on Emmeline's name. My great-grandmother's name was Emma and I have always loved this name. Thanks to the TV show Friends, this name has exploded as one of the most popular girls' names in the US. In 2007, Emma was the top third name to Sophia and Isabella. Before this Emma held the number one spot since 2004 (according to babycenter.com). After the episode of Friends when Rachel Green names her baby Emma and this name's subsequent popularity, it was never really a contender for us. I mourned the loss of this name many years before we were pregnant. But three winters ago, I was in London as a Teaching Assistant for a study abroad program. On our second or third day there, I was doing some sight-seeing on my own (see below) and came across a monument next to the Parliament building. It was for Emmeline Pankhurst. She was an early suffragist and political rebel. I thought the name was beautiful and I loved that it was attached to a strong, independent woman. I also liked that it was a variation of my great-grandmother's name that I had been so fond of. At first Paul was not sure of the name, but when we became pregnant two and a half years later, this name found its way to the top of our list. Currently there are 955,000 Google hits for "Emmeline". Recently I have discovered that Emmeline is the name of the heroine from the novel and film The Blue Lagoon, though in the film she is called "Em." Emmeline also appears in the A. A. Milne poem "Before Tea" (see below) which was published in 1924 in the collection When We Were Very Young. (I think that the British pronunciation sounds more like "Emmalean" because in this poem Milne rhymes "Emmeline" with "clean" and "queen"). In addition, Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn contains a young poet named Emmeline Grangerford who "could write about anything you choose to give her to write about, just so it was sadful." (Can you tell that I am a literature-junkie, yet?!). After Emmeline was born my brother-in-law informed us that Ben Folds has a song called "Emaline." It is absolutely beautiful. But if you listen to it, make sure you find the live version; it is much prettier than the studio version.
So, on to her middle name: We wanted something that sounded good with Emmeline; maybe something with Ls or Ms in it. I had suggested all sorts of things like Angelou (I liked this one because I thought that Emmy Lou would be a cute nick name-like the folk artist Emmylou Harris), Marie, Lilian... but Paul scrunched his nose up at these. One of my final suggestions (without much forethought) was Louise. Paul really liked the sound of it and I thought that it was OK. I let him pick the middle name because I was so delighted that he finally came around to the first name that I liked. I found out later that Louise means "woman warrior" and it is also a form of Allison.
Viola! Emmeline Louise was born...; I have no regrets (click here to read an article about baby name remorse...thanks for sending this Kels!). I love to see her name on paper, I love to hear the nurse announce it at the doctor's office, I love to see it hanging on her nursery wall, I love to sing it to her, I love, love, love it. I hope she will like it, too. I was not always a fan of my name. When I was a kid I wished I could be a Samantha or something like that. But I grew to love my name as I got older. I am named after my maternal grandmother, Alice, and that always made me feel special, too.
So, the moral of this story is...@%&*$ you Pier One! If Emmeline soon becomes a popular name, I blame it on your cheap Indonesian furniture!

Before Tea
by A.A. Milne (from When We Were Very Young)

Emmeline
Has not been seen
For more than week. She slipped between
The two tall trees at the end of the green...
We all went after her. "Emmeline!"

"Emmeline,
I didn't mean --
I only said that your hands weren't clean."
We went to the trees at the end of the green...
But Emmeline
Was not to be seen.

Emmeline
Came slipping between
The two tall trees at the end of the green.
We all ran up to her. "Emmeline!
Where have you been?
Where have you been?
Why, it's not more than week!" And Emmeline
Said, "Sillies, I went and saw the Queen.
She says my hands are purfickly clean!"

The monument that inspired Emmeline's
name; Parliament is to the left and the Thames
is in the background

Close-up of the plaque

View of Parliament from near Pankhurst's
monument

View of Westminster Abby from near
monument

View of the Thames from rear of Parliament


Emmy Lou's nursery