the name game

Since we are on the topics of names, I was thinking about my own girls names. I love both of their names so much -- they honor family members and fit them so well (now that I know her, A is so not a Susannah Jane). But, I have violated some of my own major "When I'm a parent, I'll never..." rules.

First of all, I have taken to calling both girls by nicknames on occasion. I had wanted to abstain from nicknames because, with the exception of a 6-month period after college when I tried to be "mature", I have never, ever gone by my given name of Kathleen. My parents even *named* me with the sole intention of calling me Katie. So, it was kind of a pain growing up -- correcting everyone on the first day of school, having people assume my nickname was Kathy. I wanted to keep the girls from that. But here I am, calling the girls Lizzie and Addie on occasion.

Secondly, I wanted to give the girls names of equal popularity. While my name never cracked the top ten, my sister Kara's was practically unheard of. So all that really cool personalized stuff that little girls want (pencils, barrettes, coffee mugs, bracelets)? If they had Katie, there was pretty much no chance that they had Kara, too. So what do I do? Name my first daughter a name that (according to the Baby Name Voyager) has consistently been in the top 20 since...oh...the 1800s. And my second daughter...her name peaked at 169 in the 1910s, fell out of the top 1000 in the 1950s and didn't even reappear in the top 1000 until 2003 (it was 467 in 2006).

Eh...it's not the first time (and certainly not the last) I've had to eat my words with regard to my parenting choices.