whats in a name?

ive had several people ask about danikas name...


"how did you come up with that name?"


so i thought i would explain how our sweet danika got her name...

first...no, she is not named after "that race car driver"
second...yes, i know there is a race car driver named danica patrick....
and yes, i know shes hot! (or at least ive been told she is, see picture below)

the story goes like this...

we went into this with no names picked out...no boy name, no girl name....

now we did have a list of names, about 15 girl names and 13 boy names....but matt had his faves and i had my faves....and our personal favorite lists didnt match...

while we were at the hospital, and i was sent to walk to get labor started, i was like, "we need to figure out this name thing"....so we started discussing our list...and got no where! we even looked at a bulletin board outside the special care nursery that had all sorts of cards and pictures from babies that had been in that nursery...looked at all those names, and still came up with nothing.

we went back to the room and my contractions started to come a little more frequently and were getting a little more uncomfortable so i asked matt to get our list of names out and lets again try to figure this out...well, our list was in the book of 10,000 baby names.....a few minute later i look over and matt has the list sitting on his lap and he is thumbing through that baby name book!!!!

wait a minute buddy....dont be looking through that book! we have a list!

he runs a name or two by me..."how about ____" or "what about ____"...

no, no , no....oh, heres a contraction.....mooooaaannnnn.....

then he says "what about danika"? and i respond, half irritated (hey, i was in labor with no epidural!)..."you are not supposed to be ADDING to our list, why are you even looking in that book!?!?!?"....well, apparently, he puts the new name on our list, then puts the list in the book and puts the book away....he was going to take a nap...HA! no nap was had, thats about the time i started rockin and rollin...and shortly after that, we had a baby!

when she came out...that narrowed our list in half!

i liked a lot of names on the girl list (girl names are much easier for me than boy names), but there was one name that i THOUGHT matt kind of went along with as well...so for the last few weeks, i thought if we had a girl her name would be "x" (i dont want to tell you the name cause id hate to hear "OH I JUST LOVE THAT NAME!") my mind was made up!

well, i guess i was wrong with what matt thought, he told me that "x" was ok...but he LOVED the name danika....this is where our dilemma was...go with the name that i had thought it was going to be and matt kind of liked, or go with this new name (danika) that matt loved!

we wanted something different....danika is different, not common. "x" is different as well, but here in the last few months it has become REaLLy popular....negative for "x"

danika means "morning star"....and my baby was born at 0256AM...and is our morning star! "x" had a meaning that was blah...another negative for "x"

i loved the way i wrote danika (yes, i sat there and wrote each name with our family like i was signing christmas cards!)...."x" didnt look as pretty...negative for "x"

they both yelled good...haha, yes, matt and i both yelled, "danika, get your butt down here!"...and then "x, get your butt down here!"

so, on paper, danika TOTALLY WON...but i just couldnt get my heart to close the book on "x", the name i had secretly named our little girl weeks before...

the decision agonized me. it ran my life for 2 days....i put so much pressure on myself, im not the kind of person that has a baby...and doesnt have a name for her for 2 freaking days for goodness sakes! and i felt the pressure from everyone, friend and family, as well, and rightfully so. we just had a baby, everyone is excited, and they want to know her name!

dang it jenny, name your baby already!

so after much thought and discussion, we went with danika. i love the name, dont get me wrong...like i said, i just had a hard time closing the book on "x".

then we had to pick a middle name....and it started all over again!

i have wanted catherine to be my girls middle name since finley...catherine is my moms name. but it just didnt flow well with finley, and grace (which is matts moms middle name) flowed so much better, so finley became finley grace....and ive held onto catherine and the idea that if we had another girl, that would be her middle name, no matter what. well....

when matt found danika, he wanted my middle name to be her middle name....danika lynn, flows great! but ive had my heart set on catherine....and who knows if we will be blessed with another child....and that the baby be a girl...so, this was my "second chance" so to speak, to get catherine.

we compromised....he picked danika, i picked catherine....

so danika catherine she became....

i finished filling out the birth certificate, and an hour later we were discharged from the hospital!