introducing... everly grace

We get so many comments on Everly's name. Strangers will stop us to tell us how lovely it is when they overhear us using it. I've lost count of the amount of people who have said they've added it to their baby name lists. Everybody always says the same thing; how it's so unusual, but so pretty, and how much it suits her And honestly our little Everly's name came to us like a bolt from the blue, it was destined to be her name before she was even a twinkle in our eyes.

I'm often asked where we got the name from, and the simple answer is that I can't remember. But it was our little girl's name long before we even had a little girl. Some time between having Dylan and getting pregnant again I heard, or read, or saw the name (I wish I could remember where) and it just sort of stuck in my head. And I can remember mentioning it to Rich and him sort of shrugging his shoulders about it and that being it. We weren't even pregnant with number two, and were still utterly convinced that we would be a family with lots of sons, so we didn't really need to give it very much thought.

Once we found out that we were pregnant for a second time, the inevitable name discussions started. We had a ridiculous amount of trouble with boys names. Having used both the boy names we had liked for our first son, we were totally stuck on a name should Splodge be a boy. We liked Lucas; with it's links to Lucy but we didn't absolutely love it. We had similar like-but-not-totally-love feelings about lots of other names too... Finian but Finn for short; Cooper, Hayden and Jenson were all on the short list. But we basically made no secret to friends and family that if our second baby was a boy, that we wouldn't be giving a name with the birth announcement because we just weren't sure.

On the other hand, our girl name was a done deal. Early on in the pregnancy, on a long car journey, Rich and I were passing name ideas around. We'd dismissed Addison and Harper which we had loved in our previous pregnancy; Addison because I now knew a couple of people with daughters with that name, and Harper because a certain rather famous footballer had called his first daughter that and really pulled it from the slightly obscure into the mainstream. We liked Isla but it had rocked in popularity, and I liked Eden too, but Rich wasn't so keen.

We still sort of liked Elyse for a middle name (as we had when pregnant the first time) but I had basically set my heart on Grace as the middle name quite early in the pregnancy, and fortunately Rich liked it too. It's such an elegant and classic name. It reminds me of a dancer (something close to my heart) and the word grace also reminds me of "I need your grace to remind me to find my own" which is from the song Chasing Cars which we did our first dance to at our wedding; that is the line of the song that always really gives me goosebumps. The only thing putting us off of it as a first name was that it's so well known and popular, and I just didn't want to choose a popular name for our little girl.

So, back to the car journey... I brought up the name Everly again. I said that I liked how it is pretty and unique, but how it doesn't sound totally wacky and 'out there' because it sounds so like Emily or Evelyn. Rich pulled a bit of a face, and said he wasn't sure but that he didn't hate it... which is pretty close to a compliment from my husband. Sensing that I could possibly convince him, I kept saying how nice Everly Grace sounded together and then all of a sudden I had a total lightbulb moment and saw how I could convince my husband.

He likes nicknames and had mentioned Evie more than once as a name he liked (but which I had shot down - again due to popularity), well Evie seemed like my way in, because that could clearly be a nickname for an Everly. Rich also used to joke before we had children that he wanted a girl called Ann and a boy called Field in honour of Anfield Road, the stadium of his beloved Liverpool FC, so when I realised that Evie G sounded more than a little like Stevie G (one of his favourite Liverpool players) I reckoned that if that didn't win it, then nothing would.

Fortunately it did. As soon as I mentioned that he could call her Evie G for short he was a done deal. And yes she gets called Evie G regularly, and Gee Gee and simply Geege. And so my little Splodge bump was fated to be an Everly Grace from pretty early on. In fact I got a bit paranoid and worried while I was pregnant about someone else using the name, because I loved it so much and knew I would be devastated.

Our Everly Grace suits her name perfectly. Everly means "from the wild boar meadow", and we often joke that our little wild one is like a bull in a china shop. And of course that is a meaning which is in stark contrast to the gracefulness of her middle name. But that in itself suits our walking contradiction of a daughter; loud but quiet, crazy but sensitive, brave but needy, wild but graceful; a dainty little sprite and a total free spirit. I honestly don't think a name has ever suited someone quite so much.

And I was absolutely thrilled and honoured to hear that I am a finalist for Best Baby Blog in the MAD Blog Awards, and I would absolutely love your vote. You can vote by clicking the button below and selecting Dear Beautiful in the baby category. And thank-you, because it really does mean so much to me that people love this little online space of mine.