v11mex by Too Far North via Flickr
Here’s the second from Kristen of Marginamia – the story of finding a name for Nona Plum’s little sister!
What is your child’s name?
Valo June Reverie (Sounds like the Val in Valentine, with an ‘o’ on the end. We pronounce Reverie with only two syllables, rev REE.) We call her lots of things, mostly Valo June, but also Lo, and Vally Rev.
When did you choose?
We chose one week after the birth of the baby, and this time felt rushed. It wasn’t as clear as (big sister) Nona’s name. We went back and forth several times. When we took her to the doctor for a check-up, I instinctively called “Valo, wake up!” I think I knew then that this was her name. My husband voted for it later the same day.
Once we’d finally decided on the first name, we had a tough time picking the middle: June or Reverie? We chose both, and I’m so glad we did. We use all three of her names at different times. So I say don’t be afraid to include those extra middle names!
What were your criteria?
We didn’t want anything that starts with N or ends in -uh or -ah, since her big sister is Nona. We pretty much knew we wanted the name to end with -o.
I wanted her name to have some association with a number, like Nona’s, but I gave that up pretty early on. I found out after naming her that Valo translates to the number 8 in Malagasy. This is only made cooler by the fact that her sister’s name number is 9. Oh, the nerdiness!
As with Nona’s name, we didn’t want anything totally made up, anything ending with en, in, or yn, and wanted a nature name, without it being too obvious. I do love botanical names (Azalea and Verbena are my current favorites) but we ended up with a less obvious nature name – unless you’re in Finland, then it’s pretty obvious for sure!
Who was involved in the decision?
Again, just my husband and me, though I did end up consulting some friends and my mother for their votes on our final three names. Valo June Reverie was the least popular amongst everyone, but it ended up winning our vote!
What were the other options?
Umi Luelle – Umi has various meanings but our most personal association is the one it shares with the ocean. I just love the sound of Luelle.
Juniper Delphine – We love the sound of Juniper. Like June, it has that summery, syrupy feel. Delphine’s rather mystical associations still fill me with glee, and we may revisit that name for a future child.
Verbena June/Verbena Louelle – My husband’s least favorite, and it ends with same sound as Nona, but I continue to love this name.
Meno Reverie – After Plato’s Meno. We didn’t want to name her after the character, Meno, but the book itself. My husband and I met studying philosophy and share a love of Plato, and particularly the idea of knowledge being a sort of remembering, as is examined in the book. And the name ends in -o … but she just wasn’t a Meno.
Did the meaning matter?
Oh heck yes! Even more this time, I think. So, first things first, she was born with a giant stork mark directly in the center of her forehead, dark and giant. It was in the perfect shape of a V! I have to say that this really influenced me, silly as it may seem.
Valo is Finnish for sunlight. Neither of us have any Finnish lineage, but I do have a strange love of many things Finnish, and find that little Finnish associations keep appearing in our lives all over the place. The sunlight association is huge for me. I awoke on a Friday morning in June to contractions five minutes apart, and they seemed to intensify with the rising sun. Three hours later I gave birth to Valo in my bedroom. I just focused on the sunlight pouring into the room, right onto my face at times, and on a tree outside my window, shedding it’s white blooms in the wind – it was a crepe myrtle, which holds no name possibilities for me.
The sunlight seemed to bring her, and she was born right around the summer solstice, alongside the longest, most sunlit days of the year.
Aside from the name’s meaning, and aside from it’s starting with the same letter she had naturally tattooed on her forehead (which is almost completely faded now), it ends in ‘o’ and has those rolling ‘l’ sounds we love so much–check and check! I found the name only about a week before she was born, so we didn’t have a lot of time to let it sit with us; I think this is why it took us a while to know.
We both love the name June. I actually didn’t want to use it at first because she *was* born in the month of June. Thankfully I decided not to let that keep us from using it. We almost went with Jane, instead, a name I continue to completely adore, but we both liked the “oo” sound with Valo over the “ay” sound.
Reverie is a favorite word of ours. We both love the sound and meaning of it. It means ‘daydream.’ It also seemed to fit her. I spent a great portion of the pregnancy in a very dreamy state, as do a lot of pregnant women, I think. We had a lot of upheaval going on, and I coped by just zoning out and dreaming, likely even when I shouldn’t have, but it seemed to be something over which I had very little control. I associated the strength of that impulse with the particular little child in my womb!
I also dreamed about how she would enter the world. I wanted her to be born on a Friday morning because it’s my favorite day of the week, and (more importantly) we get a longer paternity leave for my husband with it starting on a weekend! I wanted to awake after a *full* night’s rest to an active labor and to have a very short labor. I wanted her to be born in our home. All of this dreaming and meditating was completely matched in reality when the time came, so again, I just felt like her little spirit shared this element of the pregnancy, like she was linked to all the dreaming. My wish for her as I pondered her coming in the last few days of the pregnancy, and then as I stared down at her in those first few days after her birth was that she hold on to the dreaminess! And boy, does this fit her! The word also has musical associations. I also really love the simple French word for dream, Reve, as a first name, but my husband wasn’t into it. We use it, though; I call her Vally Reve quite a lot!
Did you second guess yourself?
Yes, I did. I even went through a week where I tried just calling her June, but then my husband said her name very casually and it struck me as being very musically beautiful. I think I’d been sort of freaked out by not really having encountered it anywhere before, not even in a person online or anything; it felt sort of *too* alone, even though I knew it wasn’t a name we’d just made up. Now each time I hear it, it brings me the joy of hearing something beautiful and perfectly meaningful for this little girl, so I know it’s a perfect fit for her! I think a lot of my indecisiveness comes from being truly in love with so many names.
Hmmm, I guess there might be a need for more sweet little babies to gift with some of those names!
