Monday, January 10, 2011

And the Name is...

Oh, I'm so excited to finally be sharing baby Maxwell #2's name, so I can quit calling her baby Maxwell #2! This little bundle of joy will be named...

Peyton Kei Maxwell.

Peyton what?! Okay, a little story behind the name.

First, Peyton. When I was pregnant with Bailey, we had the first name picked out whether she had been a boy or girl. Bailey is my grandparent's last name, and if she had been a boy, her name would have been William, which is my husband's first name and a family name on his dad's side. Of course, she was a girl, and Bailey it was.

As I've mentioned before, I just knew this baby was a boy. Because of this, we hadn't even discussed girl's names. Our baby would be named William Donovan Maxwell, and go by Donovan. Only the ultrasound tech told us we were having another girl, so that name wasn't exactly going to work. As we were sitting in the room waiting on the doctor to see us that day, I was looking at the birth announcements that people had sent in and saw the name Peyton. I mentioned it to Nick, and within a week or two, we knew that was going to be her first name.

The middle name was a whole other issue. We couldn't agree on anything! Initially I wanted the name Elizabeth. I thought it flowed together so well. And it was one of those names that rolled off the tongue nicely, so when I needed to yell at her when she got older, it would be easy. Hey, those things are important! But, for whatever reason, Nick was totally against the name Elizabeth. I think I looked at every single girl name possible, and we still couldn't agree on anything!

One day he emailed me a list of names he had copied from a website. They were horrible. However, I noticed that some of them were Japanese names, which got my wheels turning. I had been struggling with the fact that Bailey's name had meaning, and Peyton's would just be random names we liked, BUT, Nick is a 1/4 Japanese, so if we chose a Japanese name, there would be meaning there! Plus, we had planned on using his dad's family name for the boy, and this way we were still honoring that side of the family.

Thinking of using a Japanese name was the easy part, finding one we liked was not. I knew I wanted something that at least sounded "normal". I enlisted the help of a friend of mine who is a Japanese translator and scoured different websites until I found the name Kei. Pronounced like the name Kay, it means blessing, grace, kindness. Did you see that middle meaning there? Grace! Which is Bailey's middle name also. So, not only does Kei represent a part of Nick's family, but it also unites the girls. I just love it!

So, it may look a little different written down, but our precious little baby is Peyton Kei Maxwell!


3 comments:

Danielle said...

I love it! And I love the little hidden meaning too (:

Mama Smors said...

love it!! the meaning makes it all the more special :) glad you could still use nick's family even though it wasn't a boy!!!

Brooke said...

I love the name Nicole! I hope you are feeling well!! :)