What's in a name? Apparently ALOT!

OK, so here we are on the Friday before your due date, and we know that we are down to the wire on officially naming you (which by the way is not really that easy).

I've spent the past couple months going through French and American baby name books, watching the credits on movies for interesting name ideas, looking online for popular and unique baby names, and I came up with about 50+ different names (see below):

Aussile (Aus-eel)
Aussile (aus-sille)
Aya (eye-ya)
Bejou or Bijou (Bee-Joo)
Belal (bee-lall)
Bisous (Bee-zou)
Bonamy (Bon-a-mee)
Bonne (Bon)
Danae (dan-ay)
Eanne (eee-anne)
Edonie (ED-don-ee)
Emile (EM-Meel)
Epiphanie (ep-phif-any)
Eulalie (u-lay-lee)
Faustine (fos-teen)
Finney (fin-ney)
Fusciane (foo-she-ann)
Gaelle (gay-elle)
Jael (yey-all)
Laelia (lay-lee-ah)
Lalie (lay-lee)
Larlene or Larleene (Lar-leene)
Lilou (lee-lou)
Linney (lin-ney)
Love
Manis (Ma-niece) or Manisse
Manon (man-non)
Marlow (mar-low)
Nais (nai-eese)
Nilla (nil-la) (however, this is a popular, milk-dipping Vanilla cookie in the US)
Nine (neene)
Ninon (nee-non)
Obeline (ob-bel-leen)
Olivia
Paquerette (pac-qu-rette)
Pasiphae (pas-ah-fay)
Pepin (Pep-in)
Photine (fo-teen)
Pience (pee-ence)
Pinae (Pin-nay)
Ponce
Pyrene (peer-ren-nee)
Ronin (Ro-nan)
Sancie (san-cee)
Searlait (Seer-lay)
Selisse (sell-lease)
Sidonie (SID-don-ee)
Sinope (sin-ope)
Solal (so-lahl)
Solyane (sol-yan)
Yvelise (eve-leese)
Zea (zee-a)

And your Dad, with some help from his co-workers and friends, came up with a whopping five, mostly American names:

Clara
Emilie
Jeanne (but pronounced the French way of "SCH-john")
Louise
Zoe


As you can see, because my name, Jennifer Reynolds, has always been a typical American name and not very unique, I've spent a long time wanting a unique name for whenever I had a child. But, with your Dad, and understandably so, he's always had a very unique last name of Vilain (VIL-ANN), which as simple as it looks to spell and pronounce, he has had to consistantly repeat the spelling of it almost every time he says it to someone here in the states.

We've been back and forth on what to name you, worrying a bit about you having to spell it in school, or having to explain it twice. Therefore, we wanted to agree upon a name that is both unique (for me), but easy to spell and hear (for Dad), and flows with your last name. And, since your Dad and I only seem to agree upon the first name, Elodie or Elody, we decided to keep it as your first name, but spell it as ELODEE, in order for others not to think you left off the M and it is "Melody", which is sort of a common American name.

This way, there is no mistaking how to pronounce it, and I think it flows a bit better with your middle name, OLIVE, and last name, VILAIN, which comes out better than naming you a longer version of ELODINE.

So, when the person in the hospital comes around to ask for your name on your Birth Certificate, we will proudly tell them it is: ELODEE OLIVE VILAIN, extraordinaire! (ok, maybe not the "extraordinaire" part, but the rest remains. ;o) )