What’s in a name?
We’ve received a few questions on the name — understandably — so we thought we’d share a little bit more about how we came up with the name Esme.
Leslie picked it.
There you have it!
No, actually, there’s more to it. We had names that we liked long before we got pregnant, and went through the requisite baby books and web sites to come up with names. There were a few that Leslie really liked, and Esme was at the top of the list. Pretty early on it was not a matter of what the name would be; rather, it was how long it would be until she could convince Jeff that Esme was the right name.
By the way, for those geeks out there, we had no idea that Esme is also the name of “essentially a behind the firewall version of Twitter, designed to run on top of Netweaver” — though if Jeff had known that and had chosen to name his child after that, well, that would be way too geeky, even for Jeff. At least her middle name isn’t Twitter. But we digress…
Incidentally, from what we have learned from Wikipieda, Esme comes from “old French” and means “esteemed” or “loved.” (I can assure you that she is.) While it can have an accent on the second “e” (“Esmé”), we’re keeping it simple and sticking to the American English keyboard layout. Though it probably can be pronounced with a soft or hard “s,” we’ve been saying it like “Ezme,” rhyming with “is me.” (The other way would make it rhyme a little bit too much with “Leslie” perhaps.)
Here’s what we know about the name, according our baby name book of choice, The Baby Name Wizard: A Magical Method for Finding the Perfect Name for Your Baby
Name watchers report increased sightings of this rare bird among the literary and artistic elite. It’s still genuniely exotic, but so irresistibly trim and chic that it could be winging toward the mainstream soon. Esmé has old French roots but is seldom used in France; it is most common in Scotland and the Netherlands.
As far as the middle name, we both just really liked Laurel, and it seemed to flow pretty well in between. Plus, the initials in their current variation (ELHL) or any possible future variations Esme chooses (ELH, ELH, EL, LHL) aren’t dirty or inappropriate, so we figured it was a good choice. Jeff was actually the first to suggest Laurel, though the possibility of Laurel Lash made us shy away from it as a first name choice. According (again) to our reference book, Laurel is currently the #662 most popular girls name, down from a peak of #288 in the 1950s:
This attractive botanical name mirrors the classic softness of Laura but gives that standard an unexpected twist. It’s a lovely choice, but keep in mind that there are thirty Laruens (and a dozen Lauras) for every Laurel, so the name will be mis-heard constantly.
And as for the last name — well, despite the fact that we could legally choose any last name we wanted (Jeff was pushing for something like Transformer or Super-Awesome), we went with the standard compromise of Hinyard-Lash. Since Leslie kept her maiden name, there were really only two logical choices, and Hinyard-Lash has a better ring to it than Lash-Hinyard. Plus Leslie likes the idea of Esme being closer to the front of the alphabet, for when things are done in alphabetical order in school (because that’s really the most important thing to consider when choosing your child’s name, after all).
Yes, we did have a boy’s name picked out, just in case the sonogram was wrong — and no, we’re not sharing that either, since there may be a Mr. Baby TBA coming along at some point in the future. Don’t get too ahead of yourselves — we’ve got our hands full with just one baby right now.