What's in a name?

We thought we would do a post on how we decided on Alexia's name.

We actually had a hard time picking out names and didn't even come close to a decision until about 2 months before she was born. We vetoed a number of names off the bat, but we were not greatly inspired by many of the other names we came across. We went through a number of "Cool" baby name books because we were looking for something a little different, but there are some very STRANGE names out there. What is with celebrity's anyway? Is there some contest to try to outdo each other in weirdness of baby names?

In the end, we decided we would each make a list of our top names and then compare. Amazingly, we actually had one name in common, Alexis. However, Chris had a variation on his list that I liked better, Alexia. We went back and forth between the two for a while, but eventually settled on Alexia.

Alexia is actually the feminine form of Alexis, which is a masculine name in most of the non-English speaking world. It's derived from the greek word Αλεξις (Alexis) meaning "helper" or "defender." Alexia is currently the 252nd most popular name in the US (but its ranked number 98 in Belgium!).

Her middle name comes directly from Marissa's grandmother on her father's side. We also liked it because Marissa's maternal grandmother's name was Mary and thanks to a list of direct descendants complied by Chris's father we realized there was a Mary Louisa and several Marys in Chris's family too. Marissa wishes that Alexia would have been able to meet her great grandmothers. She would have loved them and they would have loved her.



Left: Mary Lansu and Marissa at the house in Wisconsin.

Right: Mary Lou (Sally) Ahlering, Robert Ahlering and Marissa in front of their house in San Diego.



We often call Alexia, Lexi for short, and Lexi Lou has become a favorite nick name as well. I am sure she will take issue with the second one once the teenage years set in. Until then, she is our little Lexi Lou Who. Can't you see the resemblance?