What's in a Name?

Choosing a name for your unborn child can be a fun and exciting process. It's such an important part of your child's identity. Parents often spend hours and hours poring over lists of names, writing down their favorites, vetoing some of their spouses choices, creating a short-list and finally settling on a name for their baby. We look at family names, meanings, origins, spelling, pronunciation, possible nicknames, even sometimes going so far as to imagine how the name could be twisted and made fun of.

With twins it is even harder! Thinking of names that go together and match the family name. Plus, with twins, people have a lot of different ideas of how you can solidify that special bond with their names. Here are some "themes" that I've seen in articles about naming twins:

I could add a cute photo of a nice
handwritten list - but let's be real here
- it was all done on an iPad app. :) 

(Keep in mind that we're having two girls so these are all girl names)

Seasons: Autumn and Summer

Gems: Amber and Ruby

Virtues: Charity, Harmony, Joy, Hope

"Destination" names: London and Paris

Months: April, June, May

Flowers: Rose, Violet, Daisy, Lily

Then of course there are names that start with the same letter, or names that rhyme, or even one name and the other the same but spelled backwards (like Heaven and Nevaeh - still not sure how to pronounce that one?)



While I think some of these are beautiful names, I don't usually go for matchy-matchy things, and in our family we have a whole other list of criteria that names have to fit into...

The names should
- sound nice together (and also with their sibling's names)
- work well with our family name (Portela)
- have some special meaning to us, or a tie to a family name
- be easy to read, spell and pronounce in both English and Portuguese.

 Not too much to ask for, right?

Ever since we found out we were having girls, people have been asking about the names. It's common cultural etiquette here to announce both the gender and the name of your child well before the birth.

So, without further ado...

Arriving mid May 

How did you choose your child's name?