And the winner is ....

After many name lists and much debate, we have finally come to an agreement that we are both thrilled with. Our daughter's name will be:

Darby Hannah Story

Would I sound like a nerd if I said I liked it because it was symmetrical? I got the idea for Darby from one of my teachers in grade school - Mrs. Graham. Mrs. Graham was my G/T teacher from 1st - 6th grades and then again in 12th. I loved her class! Everyone loved her! Anyway, I remember her telling us about her daughters and one of them was named Darby. When I was a kid I thought the name was crazy and weird. But the older I got the more I liked it. I've never heard of another Darby. Tony loves names that have any kind of Celtic/Irish/Scottish/Gaelic background so he liked this one too. I've tried to look up meanings for the name Darby and I've found two that are pretty different: 1. Free man. 2. From the Deer Park Farm. Pretty strange right?

The name Hannah came from us both. When we started talking about names I told Tony we should both make a list on our own and then swap lists. If there was a name that popped up on both lists then we should definitely consider it a major contender. Hannah was the only name that we both listed. I like the symmetry of Hannah. It's a palindrome and that's oddly appealing to me. (Told you I was a nerd.) And it's also Biblical. Hannah's meaning is - Grace of God.

We had a couple of other names that were finalists for first names along with Darby and Hannah (Hayden, Amelia & Ava). I kept trying to come up with good first/middle name combinations to go along with these. I wanted to use family names like: Elizabeth, Evelyn, Nell or May. Then Sunday night, out of the blue, Tony said, "I've been thinking ... what about Darby Hannah or Hannah Darby? That way we use both of our favorite names. But it's just a suggestion. I'm not ready to settle or anything." Brilliant! I loved Darby Hannah. And then last night Tony brought it up again. He said he'd been thinking more about it and he really liked Darby Hannah. He thought that's what we should go with.

I'm so tickled we are going to use Darby! And Hannah is just classically pretty. I love it!

Yippee! Baby Girl now has a name! One more decision down, another million to go! :-)