How did you choose your childrens names?

Choosing a name for your baby while you are 'expecting' is always exciting.There is so much anticipation of all the wonderful things ahead. When we were expecting all of you we had no idea of what sex our baby was going to be, so there always had to be two options.If it' s a boy....or if it's a girl. When we were expecting Joel we looked back into our family traditions.Joel was a great uncle on Dad's side....and we already liked that name we had been to see that classic movie 'Cabaret' with the brilliant performance by Joel Grey.

I liked my Dad's name,Hugh, but he said absolutely not not, as he had always disliked his name (he was named for his great grandfather Hugh MacInnes). I have no recollection of any 'girl' options that we had. Anyway we did decide 'Joel Hugh' as 'Hugh Joel' does not have a good ring to it! When Joanna was expected,I also really liked Claire or Louise,but she just didn't look like either of those.......Elizabeth I think was just because I have always liked it ( and preferred it to MY first name).

If she had been a boy Daniel or James were up there. When it came to baby # three,everyone was asking if it would be another 'J' name, so we thought 'why not?'...... We were really stumped, until we both saw the name tag on the nurse/midwife who was with me during my labour. She was a wonderful nurse and I don't think either of us had heard of the name before, so we asked if she would mind.

She was thrilled. (Her parents had named her after queen Julianna of the Netherlands) Clare was because we still liked it, and Clare with no 'i' because there seemed to be enough 'i's in her name already. So # four had to be a 'J' too...... Jennie was Jennie because I had been reading a biography of Jennie Jerome, Winston Churchill's mother.What an amazing woman of her time she was.I loved the name but we both felt it was a bit informal for a given name, so I searched for a spelling option that would be a bit more unique than all the Jennifer's that seemed to be around at the time.

I found ' Jenefer' in a book somewhere and really liked it as being a bit different but still quite phonetic. 'Ruth' I love as a name.I have always (even as a child in Sunday school) loved the story of Ruth and over the years the 'Ruth's' that I have met have been amazing strong women. So there.....it is never an easy decision and it seems so very important,what's in a name? A lot I think.

Xxxxx Joel Very cool.