Holden

Choosing a name for your baby is hard. In fact, its a HUGE responsibility, and you basically need to nail it, or else your child is screwed. No pressure though.

A few days ago, I got a message from a reader asking me if I could share the stories behind each of our kids’ names…

“Could you do a post on how you decided on your kids names? They are all so unique and different that I thought it would be fun to hear where you got them from.” -Danielle

I loved this idea! I really do have some great stories behind each of our kids’ names too. So grab your popcorn.Let’s start at the beginning. Holden.I remember being around 20 months pregnant, sitting in Florida with Mike and family, and flipping through baby name books. It was eventually Mike that came across the name Holden. We had only ever heard “Holden” from the famous book, The Catcher in the Rye. But something about that name stuck.

We were having a hard time deciding between the names Holden and Hayden. We loved both. But it was a co-worker of Mike’s that posed this question: “what if he becomes CEO of a company one day, what name would suit that kind of position of power?” Easy, Holden.

Holden’s name suits him so well. To me, Holden is a strong, serious name, which is a perfect fit for our sweet little rule-follower.

Full name: Holden Michael Venditti

Next in line… Beau.Beau’s name was one that we had ready to go if we were having a girl. I have this tiny obsession with the movie Signs. You know, the one where Aliens invade the planet, but the focus of the movie is on a family living on a farm? The little girl’s name in it is Bo. I absolutely loved that name since the first time I watched Signs. 

The only problem was the spelling. The female spelling of Beau is actually Bo, like Bo Derek. But we were worried that Beau would get teased at school and be called B.O. – body odour. So, last minute we made the decision to change the spelling to the male version, Beau.

Beau completely suits her name. The only problem is, anytime her name is called from a list, like at a doctor’s office, they think she is a boy. Oh well. You can’t win them all.

Full name: Beau Bianca Venditti

Then came the daunting task of naming two people at once. Twins. 

Shhhhh, Mia and Everly and pretending to sleep in this photo. Pretty convincing, right?

When I was first pregnant with our twins, I was absolutely convinced I was having two boys. So, we went ahead and picked out two boy names: Sawyer (from Lost) and Landon (from A Walk to Remember).

We were completely shocked when we found out that we were having two girls. I could think of lots of girls names I loved. Daisy, Ella, Mila and Maisy, just to name a few. But Mike kept vetoing every one of them. Mike found it so hard naming our girls.

Then I got really stuck on the name Ever. I loved the simplicity of it. But Mike still wasn’t sold. It was when I heard that Channing Tatum mmmmmm…. and Jenna Dewan Tatum named their daughter Everly, that I knew that we had found our name. It was such a beautiful name. Mike was sold immediately although I initially thought I would shorten it to Ever, I never have.

Everly

Full name: Everly Mae Venditti

For a long time we thought that the two names would be Everly and Ellie. Have you seen the movie Up? That’s where we got the name Ellie from. But the more we thought about it, the more we wanted them to have very different names.

So, we threw around Mila for a bit, but then we read Mia in a baby name book and it stuck, (this was just before the name Mia exploded in popularity). Mia was simple, (which we love), and pretty.

Mia

Full name: Mia Lilian Venditti

How did we decide who got which name? When I was late in my twin pregnancy and we had FINALLY settled on our names, we let Holden decided who would get what name. So, he turned to my belly, and first pointed to the bottom, which he knew was where baby A was, and said “this is Mia.” Then he pointed to my top left, where baby B was camping out in my ribs, and said “and this is Everly.”

So when they were born, and the doctor held the first baby up, we said “that’s Mia” and when the second baby was held up we said “and that’s Everly.”

They each really suit their names perfectly. Good job Holden.

We overall opted for somewhat unique names, and we will probably never find personalized water bottles, or key chains with their names on them, (well, maybe Mia). But we love how unique they are, and fingers crossed, we are pretty sure we nailed the whole naming people thing.