EmyLee, ElleAnna, ElleHannah, What to Do?!

Finalizing an "E" name has been tough - much harder than I anticipated. I thought this would be easy, but its not! When we had our sons, we had names and ideas, but we got to hold the little guys in our arms for a while before we had to finalize anything. With our daughter, we only have a year old photograph and some sketchy doctor's notes to go by. We have to decide her name BEFORE we travel, BEFORE we meet her, BEFORE we hold her in our arms. The pressure is on now, and I know everyone is dying to know her name.... but we are STUCK!

We know that her last name will be hyphenated. Her middle name will be Suo (pronounced swoh) as it was her name from the orphanage. Opinions on leaving part of that name differ greatly among adoptive families. Some do, some don't. We realize that this is not a name given to her by her birth parents, but at age 2 1/2, its the only name she has known. We struggled with giving her an additional middle name, but with such a big name already, I don't know that we will. We have selected somewhat longer first names with an extra capital letter in them to make up for the super short middle name of Suo. At this point, all we need to decide is her first name.... but, that's easier said than done.

We love LOTS of E names, but it is important to us that her E name be very, very special. I THINK we have it narrowed down to EmyLee and ElleAnna. Both of these names hold unique attributes as you can read on the post to the right. The boys have said if she is named EmyLee, they are calling her Emy, which is cute. Right now, Emily is such a popular name though (spelled a thousand different ways), that I fear she will be lost in the shuffle. If her name is ElleAnna, the boys intend to call her Elle, which is also neat. The problem arises, however, with the fact that "Alex" and "Elle" sound similar enough that we will likely get them mixed up when we are yelling at the kids (or don't any of you do that? SMILE). Bryant says that's a silly reason to not call her Elle though as he claims I mix his name and Alex's name up all the time, and they sound nothing alike (he speaks the truth on that). My other fear about ElleAnna is that many people will mispronounce it, but my husband reminds me that people mispronounce our last name all the time, so it doesn't matter. He also tells me that those who love and know her will say her name correctly, and that's what is most important. Then, he says, "You decide".... and once again, I am confused - and the pressure is on.

I know we need the letter E, but I always wanted a little girl named Hannah. That's not likely as neither my sister or I intend to have that many children and we won't reach the letter H. That's where ElleHannah came in - a unique way to get both an E and Hannah. I also liked EmyJo (a combination of EmyLee and Johanna), but EmyJo Suo really doesn't work well. We could do EmyLee Johanna Suo and then her last name, but my kids remind me how tough that would be to fit on a driver's license, so that's probably out too.

See, I told you this was hard! Any advice or suggestions you can offer will be most appreciated. I know some of you have been voting... but, we still don't know. We would gladly take your suggestions!


Michelle, Ken, Bryant, Alex, and E.