What's in a name

    When I was pregnant with both Drew and Kate, Brendan and I knew we wanted our children to have family names. Brendan has both of his grandfather's names as his middle names and I'm just one of a kind with no family significance to my name. 

    Drew's full name is Andrew Davis after Brendan's Papu(Greek grandfather) and Davis after my maternal great grandfather. When I was pregnant with Kate we once again came up with both a boy and girl name, after throwing many, many different girl names around we landed on Katherine with the nickname of Kate. We wanted a traditional full name that she could choose to be called with a more modern nickname that also "fit" with Drew. I always contemplated how it would look on our Christmas card each year. With Drew we always call him Drew, we hardly ever call him Andrew, well except for those few moments when the full and middle name come out when he's doing something he shouldn't. So we knew that if in fact peanut as we had dubbed Kate was a girl she would be called Kate 99% of the time.

  After we had decided on Katherine we wanted a family name for a middle name. Katherine is not a family name on either side, so I was on the hunt. One night when pregnancy insomnia was in full effect it hit me like a ton of bricks....ELLEN! My little sister Karin's middle name is Ellen and I would love to name my daughter after one of my sister's. I have 3 siblings, 1 brother, 1 older sister and 1 younger sister. My brother and younger sister are actually my step siblings. Their dad and my mom were married when my younger sister was 2, my brother was 5, I was 6 and my older sister was 11. Since that day we have formed a bond that is unmatched, our love is unconditional and when naming my daughter I couldn't think of a more beautiful tribute to my younger sister and my parents than to name her after Karin.

(The whole gang with our spouses; from LtoR my brother his fiance, Brendan, moi, my brother in law, my older sis, my younger sister's fiance and my younger sister Karin)

  
  My parents took a huge leap of faith when blending four children together all those years ago. Our relationships have flourished and blossomed and my siblings are my best friends. Karin now lives in London and that morning of April 18th when we were blessed to find out that Kate was in fact a healthy little girl I called my sister in London and we both cried as I told her we had named her Katherine Ellen after her. As I told my mom and step dad what we had decided to name our precious little girl tears welled up in their eyes. The many years of worry that their children may never have close relationships was put to rest. Karin and I may not share the same DNA, we were not knitted together in the same womb but through and through we are sisters, we are best friends and she is now my daughters namesake and it warms my heart to know that Kate will know how very much I love her aunt Karin.