When we were at Cook Children’s with Evin, one of the
questions we got most often (from nurses, doctors, etc.) was, “Where did you
come up with her name?”
I have ALWAYS loved baby names and have kept a mental list
of baby names most of my life. All of my
baby dolls were named, and Kyla and I loved to name our pets as if they were
babies- Kyla named her puppy Kaitlin and I named mine Hannah.
When it came to naming an actual baby, things got a little
more difficult! When Mitch and I found
out we were pregnant we immediately started a list of boy names and a list of
girl names, with boy names coming much more easily than girl names. We received some advice from one of my
co-workers to start “testing out” the names on our list. She said that she was able to decide on her
baby’s name using this method. For a
week, rather than saying “the baby”, you call it by one of the names on your
list. If by the end of the week you
still like that name, keep it on the list and start using a different name the
following week. She said she was able to
eliminate some names off of their list because by the end of the week they were
tired of some of them. We hoped it would
work for us, too!
After first being told the baby was a boy, then being told
it was definitely a girl, we started trying out girl names on our sweet
babe. I had about 3-4 girl names that I
liked, but I wasn’t really leaning towards one in particular. As soon as Mitch found out it was a girl, he
said he wanted to “try out” the name Evin first. Luckily, this was one of the names that we
had talked about and it was on both of our lists.
We called my growing baby bump Evin for a week. And then two weeks. And then a few days more. I then realized that we never started trying
out any other names because Evin just seemed to fit so perfectly. It is a good thing, too, because it is the
only girl name Mitch would even consider!
Not only did we think it sounded right, there are so many
little connections to the name that make this name perfect for our little girl.
-Evin is the Welsh version of the name John. John was my dad’s name. My dad passed away of Lou Gehrig’s disease in
2006 when I was 19 years old. I know
almost every girl says this, but I truly think I had the BEST dad in the entire
world. He couldn’t have been more
supportive, loving, or funny (his corny “dad jokes” were the best). I LOVE that Evin’s name is a version of my
dad’s. I hope that she inherits many of
his incredible qualities.
-Evin means “God is Gracious” and “Young Warrior”. Could these meanings be any more fitting for
our tiny fighter?
-“Evans” is a last name from Mitch’s family tree. I did some family tree research a few years
ago and was able to track down names of many of our ancestors. “Evans” was from many, many years ago, but it
is still a neat connection.
We realized many of these things after we had already
decided we liked the name. We mostly
chose it because we liked how it sounded, but I don’t think we could have
selected a better name for her!
Evin’s middle name is Kate.
I tended to lean towards one syllable middle names for girls and after
we chose the name Evin, I pretty quickly narrowed it down to Evin Reese, Evin
Paige (my middle name), or Evin Kate.
One night Mitch and I went to dinner and I started writing
her name with potential middle names on a napkin. We looked at initials, monograms and the full
name. We eliminated Reese because both
her first and middle name would be unisex names, so we decided that one should
be more girly. That left us with Evin
Paige or Evin Kate and we just kept going back to Kate. While at dinner at Chuy’s Mitch and I decided
on our girl’s name!
Evin Kate Armstrong
I love that story:)
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