Names

If your first name is common and your last name defines you, then what lies in the middle is the mystery of who you are, the secret of what lies within.

I've been thinking a lot about names, and what names to give my baby. I have a pretty good idea on first names -- one for either gender, both are named after authors for my love of books.

For the girl -- Harper (after Harper Lee). For the boy -- Cooper (after James Fenimore Cooper) And of course, Cooper has the added meaning for me and baseball.

The middle name(s) gets tricky.

I have two family names for each gender. And I would also like to incorporate the baby's Ethiopian name as one of the middle names. I guess I will just wait to see which family name works best with the African name.

For the girl -- either Laura (for the grandmother I was named for) or Amelia (my maternal grandmother's middle name)

For the boy -- Lincoln (again, my namesake grandmother, it was her maiden name) or Henry (my mother's uncle).

Of course, I have a very long time to wait. And in a year, I could hate all of those names. But right now, that's where my heart is with the future name of my baby.