what's in a name

as many folks reading this may know, we had an awfully difficult time choosing a name for our child. my mom has always commented on my "haagan daaz syndrome" or my inability to make a decision (even the smallest decision!) picking a flavor of ice cream or an entree of a menu is a big deal to me. subsequently, my child's name was a huge deal! we both loved many spanish sounding names but jeff finally convinced me that my child was not really going to look like a magdalena or a flora and that indeed we are not or latin or central american descent. we loved the name "lucia" but unfortunately named the dog that and she has had her fair share of issues since we even discussed giving the baby her name and perhaps referring to her by one of her nicknames ("ladybird" perhaps, especially now that that namesake, ladybird johnson, is no longer with us). so we hadn't picked a name out when our baby was born.

then she came out! she came out with this beautiful fair skin and a tiny amount of light fuzz on her head, defying what i had thought about my child. the number of people who had said , "oh i can't wait to see the wild, thick, dark, curly head of hair your child will have" and then little peach came out, her own little, unique and unexpected self. we had to sit and get to know her a bit before we could give her a name. eliana had been a name we had both always liked. we know a little girl, eliana, who is the sister of one of my beloved students, antigone. because we are both teachers, it is hard to find a name for a child that we haven't both already taught at some point over the years and therefore have some sort of association with. but eliana just kept coming up. a few days before i gave birth, i was at school interviewing teachers to fill my position when i'm gone for maternity leave. i was giving this woman a tour of the school when i passed by a giant picture of eliana on the wall. i was filled with this sweet, warm and fuzzy feeling (a fairly common feeling when you're me and pregnant and emotional), and i thought, wow, what a beautiful, special child (with a lovely name!) then jeff and i both read the book 'three cups of tea' right before elie was born. in that book the protagonist names his daughter "amira eliana", and eliana means something like 'gift from god' in some dialect from pakistan. we both said something like, hey, did you see that the guy in the group named his daughter eliana? and then we let it go.

and celie. what about celie? well being an english major who focused on contemporary feminist, multicultural literature, i was always a big alice walker fan. the color purple was one of those real "first" books for me, a book that really opened my eyes about gender and race when i first read it in high school. i then re-read the book last summer because i was going to see the musical on broadway and i wanted to remember the nuances of the story. the play had a profound effect on me and i sobbed through the whole thing, gripping hilary's hand and grinning through my mega goosebumps. then all through my pregnancy i was obsessed with a handful of songs from the show, many of which use the name "celie". a trademark of my pregnancy was me standing in the kitchen sobbing, listening to the color purple and jeff coming in and rolling his eyes wondering what was fun about show tunes at seven a.m. that make you cry. i told him that good tears were a necessary indulgence for a pregnant woman, kinda like ben and jerry's. so jeff even got to know these tunes, especially one line in which one of the male characters says, "i don't want celie, she ugly!" and we would quote this line and laugh (i love having musical theatre inside jokes with my husband because that is SO not his thing....

then she was born. we both agreed she looked like an eliana. elie means light and eliana, in hebrew, means something like "delivered from god." she definitely came out like she was brought from god, two big pushes and there she was! i didn't even feel her head or shoulders pass, all that pain that i was ready for i missed, because she shot out so gracefully into the world. then i thought about the character of celie in walker's story. she is strong. she is smart. she is selfless. she is loyal and loving and accepting. what better qualities could you want someone to have? so there she was. eliana celie. eliana celie, the selfless, brave, smart and beautiful gift from god. our girl.