One of the most difficult tasks you need to accomplish when you find out you’re pregnant is to come up with a name for the baby. We really all have so many personal reasons in deciding which name our child is going to have to honor the rest of her life. I mean, it’s a daunting task to get it right and make one of the first of many huge decisions on behalf of this other person.
The reason I’m up late thinking about this is because I was reading a discussion started by Mamapedia on the Million Moms Challenge community where she’s asking how and why we all picked our baby’s name. It was fun reading everyone’s responses and realizing that a lot of people still go the conventional route of naming their child after a family member, or even coming up with acronyms using the first couple of letters from the mom’s and grandmother’s names and combining them. Phew! So much into a name!
That all got me thinking that I’ve never shared with you how my husband and I came up with our daughter’s name: Camila. Well, I’ll take credit for “coming up” with it, of course!
The story is that my husband and I knew for a fact that we did not want to borrow any names from family members. Not because we wanted to be unconventional, but because we didn’t want the responsibility of choosing one abuela over the other, etc. Plus, I’m already named after my mother, Ana Lilian, and two is enough! Well, almost three…my mother, in an act of sheer genius (Ahem…) named my little sister Liliana, as in Ana Lilian reversed..get it?
Anyway…
We wanted a different name and the three rules we had {aside from no familia names} were:
1. We both must agree on it
2. It needs to be easy to pronounce in both English and Spanish
3. It can’t be any name that some wisecrack can figure out how to tangle around to make it funny or whatever
So, it wasn’t that easy.
During my sixth month of pregnancy we went to Mexico City for our last trip as a family of two. One of the first things I do when there is run to the bookstores. I found a novel by Marcela Serrano (I have to thank Roxana for my Marcela Serrano addiction!) titled Antigua Vida Mía. I immediately devoured all the pages in that book and fell in love with the main character, Camila. She was strong, she was passionate, she was adventurous.
There it was. My daughter’s name. I just knew it. It just had to pass the Dad test, and it did. He loved it immediately and since it had been the first name we had both immediately and without hesitation said yes to, we grabbed it.
And, that’s it, our baby name story.
What’s yours? Would really love to know!
What a great story! I love the name Camila, it’s so beautiful! <3
Glad you enjoyed it and like the name! We still love, love it
Oh I love the name Camila! It’s sooo pretty!
We chose to name our son (who will be here Wednesday, can’t wait!) Jayson Thomas. Thomas is my father’s middle name and the name my dad goes by as well as being the name of a saint. My fiance goes by Jay to his family and some friends, so Jayson (also can look like son of jay!
)seemed like the perfect name. We’re all very happy with it. 
Congrats on the birth of your baby boy!!! I like how those two names sound together and they are very classy. Will you be calling him one or the other or both?
Lovely story and Camila is such a pretty name! Before we found out that we were having a boy, I was totally convinced it was a girl and we could not agree on a girl’s name. When the ultrasound revealed that it was indeed a boy, we walked out of the doc’s office and I said “Max”. I had just read a great book with a very strong character with that name and it was in my head. His daddy is from Puebla so there is history there too, “Maximiliano” from Austria may not have been a Mexican hero, but a part of an interesting Mexican/Poblano story anyway.
I liked Max because I could see a sweet little boy in kindergarten saying “Hi, I’m Max” and could also see a grown man in an important business meeting with a strong handshake “Hi, I’m Max”. So we agreed, but then the next few months we had the “Maximo, Maximillian, Maximiliano” debate, haha. “Maximiliano” stuck, works in English and in Spanish and it suits him to a tee.
So his full name is Maximiliano? I love how much character that name has and that Max is pretty much pronounced the same in most languages. How about Mayan?!
Ana, Camila is such a beautiful name.
It does suit him to a tee Kel!
My husband and I decided on Malcolm Alexander for our Cuban-American Mexican boy. Malcolm for Malcolm X and because it sounds the same in English and Spanish (except now we have kind of found that it doesn’t) and because it’s not very common. Alexander because Daddy is Alexander. I also think his name fits him to a tee and I cannot imagine him with any other name on the planet!
Haha, I guess in Mayan it might be pronounced “Maxsh” (like “Xcaret”, “Ishcaret”, haha!)
Ah, forgot to add that his middle name is my dad’s name “Gordon”. Doesn’t work so well here in Mexico, everyone thinks we named him “Gordo” or “Fat”.
Oops!!! I doubt he’ll be signing much with his middle name in Mexico!
Camila is such a beautiful name. My daughter’s name is Hallie, which means Praise the Lord. We didn’t know that until lately, but my husband calls her Hallie-lujah. Which we think fits her.
What a beautiful and poetic name!
Oh BTW, I love that star blanket. Is it muslin cloth?
It is! She was born in the middle of August in Los Angeles, so we used those to swaddle her in
Precious photo of your daughter. My son who did not have a name until his very last day of discharging. All his tags were called ” Baby Salas” ( after our last name) including the announcement on the newspaper. My husband was so adamant on naming him after his favorite uncle, Carlos. For various reasons, I didn’t want to name him Carlos and we decided on Adrian, a name neither of us EVER thought of. It was OK, because I think its perfect
If Camila would have been a boy I think Adrian would have been at the top of our list! I gravitate towards boy names that start with an A…not sure why!
Were you waiting to name him once you “met” him? I’ve heard people do that, which I think is a great idea, but drives the family nuts! Jaja!
Oh well, in my case I wanted to be unconventional, untraditional, crazy, etc however you want to call it. I remember many people telling me that I was going to change with the arrival of my kid, that the crazy silly Mary they knew was going to mature and I was not going to be as fun as before. Oh well being a stubborn Scorpio, I decided to name my son with a name that would always remind me that I was silly, crazy and immature
.
I love bears, I think they are cute, strong, simple, and I am crazy about them so I wanted to name my son Oso….. of course can you imagine the reaction of my family in Peru. You must be crazy, you are going to regret it, people are going to make fun of him, etc. My mom knowing me so well, knew I was not going to change my mind, so she said would you at least add an H to that name?? and I said NO, because here people would pronounce it like Joso or Osho. And then my mother said, how about if you add and S, and I loved it!!! so this is my son’s name Osso
What a great story and an original and beautiful name!! I’m lucky to have met Osso and he carries his name very well! Bello!
Your name story is very similar to ours…
we wanted a name that was easy to pronounce and sounded almost the same in both languages, so we went with Olivia.
Her middle name was more difficult though – I wanted a family name, like Paula (I had an aunt in Cuba who died when she was 8 years old and my husband’s grandmother was Paola – but my brother’s name is Paul and my husband didn’t want my brother to think we were naming our daughter after him
so under pressure in the hospital we picked my name, Christina, but then I had second thoughts and we changed it to Grace. We actually had to amend her birth certificate because even though we called the lady immediately (while we were still in the hospital), she had already submitted the information electronically!!!
Olivia is perfect in both languages! Lindísimo!
They pressured you to pick a middle name? That´s odd! but…you found a great one!
My daughter has no middle name because we feel her last name (which is not the same as mine and I don´t reveal online) is very unique and strong.
We actually wanted a middle name for her, (my husband doesn’t have a middle name and he REALLY doesn’t like his first name, so it bothers him not having a middle name which he could have used instead) – but we just couldn’t agree on it! BTW – his name is Larry and that is his full name – it’s not Lorenzo or Lawrence so it’s not a pretty name like Camila
We had the exact same criteria for choosing our daughters’ names. And ironically they are Liliana and Camila! We haven’t had much trouble with people mispronouncing Liliana but Camila has proved challenging for some. To us she is “ca-MEE-la,” pronounced as it is in Spanish, but people who see her name first on paper often say it “ca-MILL-ah.” Others get confused when they hear her name and end up calling her “ca-MEE-lee-ah.” Have you had any similar issues with your Camila?
Yes!!! Exactly the same ones! We do get ca-mee-LEE-ah a lot! That would be spelled Camilia…and we also get the spelling with the two LLs, like the French version.
funny you have a Liliana and a Camila, too!
Our first was named after a yoga mantra we’d been listening to during my last trimester. We spent most of that trimester in a yoga studio, teaching, taking classes, assisting with the studio and in the studio owner’s home whom we were living with at the time. Her name is Adi Shakti.
Our second daughter, was surprisingly named after a rat my husband had been trying to name and he decided to change that poor rat’s name for the 10th time to give the name to our daughter. I actually wanted her name to start with an ‘S’ like my deceased aunt and I wanted it to be easily pronounced in Spanish, so when he said “Solaris” I thought that was perfect. I immediately saw the nicknames Sol, which has always been one of my fave names and Ris(like reese) another name I’ve always loved. We call her Sol, mostly. She was middlenamed after his great grandma who is also deceased…Leona.
With both of our kids we didn’t really consider names until after they were born and named them both at the very last minute!
We too were searching for a name that worked well in both Spanish and English. We named our daughter Adela, and to my sheer delight, people love it in both languages. Of course die-hard English speakers pronounce it “ah-DELL-ah” but that’s okay with us.
The story: When we were dating, my husband (boyfriend then) always needed to be home by 9:00 pm because he wanted to watch ‘the news’. I always found it entertaining that he HAD to be home to watch the news about Mexico on a Spanish network. Eventually I started to watch with him. His favorite news program? Noticias por Adela. I loved to watch Adela Micha deliver the news, and she seemed so down to earth. I told my husband that Adela was a beautiful name and he agreed. We had our baby girl name picked before we were even pregnant!
A funny side note, we moved over an hour away from our families to take new jobs when I was in my first trimester. Living in an unfamiliar town and knowing no one, I decided to speak to an older hispanic lady that lived two houses down. She was walking her dog one evening, and I greeted her in Spanish. We spoke for awhile and then got around to introducing ourselves. She told me her name was Adela. She was so tickled to learn that would be the name of our baby daughter born a few months later. She feels a very special connection to our daughter, and loves to tell others that they share a name.
Our next daughter (in December) will have the name Marisol. Anyone have Marisol and have issues with mispronounciation?
I love hearing these stories! We named our son Julián – and we are fine with people calling him Julian (English pronounciation) too. I wanted to be sure that my Mexican in-laws could say his name – so we settled on Julián! We both love the name and it suits him very well.
We probably won’t have kids for a few more years, but I try to keep an eye out for good names. We’re going to be pretty limited because we have very different tastes, plus like you said, it has to be easy to pronounce in English and Spanish.
(Plus some of Jorge’s family has already used some of the best baby names… Sofia, Camila and Naomi… so those are off the table.)
Chloe! That was my girl’s name Laura! And Papi has cut me off so I will never get to use it!
Oh, or Lola…sorry…you’re not even pregnant yet! I am so annoying! lol
My husband really wanted the name Xochitl if it was a girl. Unfortunately I vetoed that, even though it is really beautiful. My (non-hispanic) family is still having a hard time with the name of my stepdaughter Yajaira. We eventually settled on Yasmin with a middle name Xochitl if it was a girl. Yasmin being the Arabic form of Jasmine, a flower, which is related to the meaning of Xochitl, easy to pronounce in both Spanish and English– although with a little different style– and for people coming from other languages as well, since we live in a very diverse community. Also, there is “the” Disney princess, Jasmine. But, we had a boy. That made things easier. Each male in my family is named Mark, at least on the birth certificate (then there are nicknames). So ours is Mark and he goes by Marco — he’s the Spanish-speaking Mark of the family. My husband thought this was fine. He already had a son named after him from his first marriage, and his father already had another grandson as his namesake. So my husband chose Eduardo as our son’s middle name, who was my husband’s grandfather. Our son is Marco to anyone who speaks Spanish, but he’s officially Mark so I hope at school he might not get “Marco” & then the inevitable “POLO!” totally constantly. He’s just started preschool so we shall see how that goes.
It seems to be a Mexican thing but people in the family call him lots of different things, Marco, Marquii, Marcos, Marquis, Marquitos, Marcoiris, and Gordo (he’s kinda skinny). So I guess he may adjust easily to being just plain Mark sometimes.
I love the name Xochitl! Actually, I worked with a woman by that name for several years. She is Mexican-American. Even though it is beautiful, I do see your point for not using it, seeing as everyone who saw it written would get a panicked look before attempting to pronounce it.
My husband and I went cross-country (before we were even married), and I saw a road sign with the name of a town, Zia. I pointed out the name to my husband and wrote it down. I knew that if we ever had a girl, that would be my first pick. A year later we had a boy, and I had this name in my head, but we couldn’t do anything with it. We knew we wanted our son’s first name to be Slavic (as I am Serbian), and his middle name Irish (my husband is an American of mostly Irish ancestry). So our son’s name is Andrei Liam, and we like it.
Very cute story! I love how you read that novel and liked the character that the name had. It left me thinking with our stories and I don’t have such a deep one. We did decide however both of our kids names before the first one was born. We didn’t know the sex of the first so we had boy and girl name prepared. The number one rule was that it would be easily pronounced in both languages and that we both loved it, so Adrian and Maya were the winners. We’re still very much happy with the pics and even happier we didn;t need to pic another boy name if our 2nd was a boy too!
Camila is a beautiful name! Naming after a character in a book…definitely a strong name!