Aelah Grace: What's in a Name?

Naming a child may be one of the most difficult decisions people ever have to make.  Do you want the name to be original?  But not weird.  Or maybe you want a family name?  But can it be turned into a horrible nickname?  Do you want the babies name to be able to be shortened?  Or maybe you aren't a fan of nicknames.  What about meaning?  Do you want a name of significance or does it not matter?  And then you find a name you like but your spouse absolutely hates it.  Or at least isn't sold on it...

As I'm sure many other women have done - I had a list of names I loved long before we got pregnant or even started trying.  However, unlike most, I had an actual list on my computer.  Yep...I may be a little crazy.  Over the past few years, if I heard something I liked, I would add it to the list and find out the definition or basic meaning.  Hubby knew of my list - and, justifiably, thought I was a bit nuts.  

Once we found out we were expecting I pulled out my list and we looked it over.  He quickly eliminated probably 75% of the names I had written.  Throughout the coming months we added a couple of others and then narrowed it down to two boy names and two girl names.  And after discovering that we were expecting a beautiful little girl, it was on!

And the winner is....

Aelah Grace Sherman.

Grace was Hubby's grandma's name.  He fought hard for Grace to be a first name.  But I had my qualms and we finally agreed on using it for a middle name.

So where did we get Aelah?  Elah is the Hebrew word for "oak or terebinth tree."  We added the "a" to help with pronunciation so she wouldn't get "Ella."  It has helped a bit but, as with anything different, pronunciation has been a bit difficult.  To clear things up - it is a long a sound - so it is prounounced "A La"  We debated whether or not to spell it simply "ala" but I desperately wanted to keep the original Hebrew.  Spelling took us longer than picking a name I think.  ;)

But anyways, back to the meaning.  We loved that 'Aelah' brought together the passions of Hubby and I.  Hubby, simply put, is a landscaper and has a sincere passion for all plant life - especially trees.  I love to study the word of God, especially the original Hebrew and Greek.  Neat, right?

Bur the significance doesn't end there.  When we were still debating names, we decided to look a little more into meaning.  It was then that I stumbled across this blog post from The Road Less Traveled.  To briefly summarize - the terebinth and oak trees both have a lot of Biblical significance.  First, the Valley of Terebinth is where David defeated Goliath.  Which is pretty awesome.  But the thing I love most is that these trees, because of their strength and long lives, Biblically signify a place of belonging, a place where God is, a place where you meet with God.  

Beautiful isn't it?

Once we read those words, we were both sold.  Our baby girl's name would be Aelah.  I can't wait to one day share the meaning of her name with her.  And I hope she thinks it is as beautiful as we do.

You really should go here and read the full post that we stumbled across.  She really did her research and there is SO much that I left out for the sake of simplicity.  ;)

How did you choose your little ones name(s)?