B-Trice

The pediatrician's office called this morning to confirm B-Trice's appointment.

That's how the nurse pronounced it: B-Trice, with 2 syllables, rhymes with ice. This happens all the time at the doctor. Someone is always pronouncing her name very wrong. Say it with me, Bee-uh-triss. Not B-Trice.

As soon as we found out we were having a girl, we started going over names. We agreed that her name needed to have a good meaning and it wasn't going to be a "trendy" name. It also needed to be a name that didn't have a popular nickname attached to it because we wanted to call her by her full first name. Penelope, Margaret, Lola, Claire, Beatrice, Isabella, Zeta and a few others made the list.

Names are important. I went 3 days without a name when I was born. When they finally decided, I was an Aly and my parents only called me Alyson when I was in trouble. I never liked my name growing up. At the beginning of the school year my mom always told my teachers that I preferred to be called Aly, but somewhere during the year I became known as Alyson. It felt like I had 2 names; 1 my parents called me and 1 the rest of the world called me. When I got older, I hated how young Aly sounded but still hated to be called Alyson. JD loves to call me Alyson....he is foolish.

Names are important to God too. Several times in the Bible He changes the names of people to something of greater/different meaning or instructs parents what to name a child he has a mighty plan for. He says to "call those things that are not as though they are" Romans 4:17. Calling her a name that had a lovely and beautiful meaning was important for her future. We didn't want to give her a name that meant "evil seductress" or "lazy slob" or something horrible.

Beatrice Claire means "giver of happiness," and "clarity." It has positive things attached to its meaning, it's an old family name on JD's side, it's pretty and it fits our style. The perfect name for our girl.

We never thought it would pose such pronunciation problems though. We get the Bee-uh-triss vs. Bee-at-triss, but B-Trice? I know it's old fashioned but I would never look at it and think, "oh yeah, those people named their baby B-Trice." BECAUSE B-TRICE IS NOT A NAME!!! Beatrice is.

So tomorrow I will take ol' B-Trice to the pediatrician and will once again correct the nurse. I have a feeling she will always be called this at the doctor though. Maybe we should just call her Claire.