Her Name

For months we searched for the perfect name for our baby girl. Even before we found out she was a girl we were looking, mostly Logan because I was just sure I was going to be a boy mama forever and was giving up on the idea daughters. But I still kept track of my favorite girls names. Ella Reece was to be James's name is he was a girl it was a name Logan and I both fell in love with, but it just did not feel right any more so it was scratched off the list. Kaitlyn Alicia was deeply considered Logan wanted her to have my first name and Kaitlyn for both our mothers Kathleen and Lynnie, I love the reasoning but was not a big fan of the names. I really loved the name Ellis or Elli for short, Logan disagreed, Breeja, Eloise, Hollis, Marielle, Aila and many more were on my list of names I liked. I spent one afternoon looking through thousands of names and Logan denied them all so he took a chance and tried, he came up with Layla and Jessa I was not a fan of either, so we decided to take a break and try searching later.
With no luck after a month, one night while sitting on the couch we both decided we would look and pick one. Finally Logan said we should just make up a name we like, which lead to mixing all sorts of sounds hoping to come up with a beautiful name. I then asked who are some inspiring women in our lives we would like to honor. We both said our mothers, grandmothers and a few leaders. We sorted through the list and we chose our mothers. Both our moms don't actually go by their legal first names. My mom's is Herlinda and Logan's Shirley, as much as we love our moms we were just not in love with their first names so off to middle names Mae and Kathleen. We tried to merge the two, coming up with some odd combinations. Using Mae seemed to short and wanted something with a little more to it. Finally I mentioned Maelle we could call her Mae, Elle or Ellie, Logan still wasn't sold. I then mentioned Maela (pronounced Mae-LA), Logan loved it and I did too.
We knew if we chose one mothers name we had to use both. So we really liked Kate as a short version of Kathleen. But after much thought and discussion with family we decided Kate just didn't seem to be a good and chose Kathleen. Our baby girl's name would be Maela Kathleen after two women who have loved us, helped us grow both physically and spiritually, cared for us, taught us right from wrong, how to show love towards others and so much more. Each of our mothers play a significant role in our lives and there was no better way we could honor and thank them for all that they have done for us as children and now as adults and grandmothers.
I hope our sweet Maela Kathleen will know that she is named after such wonderful women who we both love and adore and are so thankful for.