Wednesday, March 7, 2007

naming

I kind of have nickname envy.
I have a new friend, Abi, who has a very cute daughter, Ginger. Abi calls her daughter "Little Bear". I mean, how cute is that?
My inspired nickname for Lucy is "Sweet Baby". Yawn.
Dyami calls her "Lucia, Bambina" (usually followed with "Te amo")
My friend Jerusha thought a lot about her kids' nicknames. Her eldest daughter is "Love Bug". (all together: awwwww!) The youngest, Jasmine, is Jazzy Jazz. So appropriate!
Lucy's name is a nickname. So maybe I am more inspired than I think.

I really like her name: Lucia, pronounced the Italian way. With Lucy for every day. But even that has its problems.

First, Dyami's mom expressed the worry that we would never call her Lucia, except when she was in trouble. "It's such a beautiful name," she said. "It would be a shame for her to only associate it with punishment."
And Dyami's eldest brother, Jamie (named James, after their dad), said, "So she's going to have a nickname for her name, huh?" Apparently he sometimes has issues with his own name.
Sigh. That's what we get for not consulting everyone before naming her. (Oh, wait. That's why we didn't consult everyone before naming her).

Finally, no one is going to pronounce Lucia with a "ch" sound. It will be the Spanish Lu-see-ah, every time. We decided we were okay with this, pre-official-naming, because we like that pronunciation as well, but your name is your name, and it sucks to correct everyone (not that I'd change it, but it is a downside). This problem kind of reminds me of when D and I went to Italy to these cool coastal villages, Cinque Terre, pronounced Chinqua Terra. We sat next to some Canadian students on the train there, and they pronounced it "Sinky Terry".

Yikes. From Cinque Terra to sinky terry. They don't call them the "Romance" languages for nothin'.
Actually, maybe that could be Lucy's new nickname!

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