Names

Just recently, I was driving my kids home from school when my daughter nonchalantly asks me from the back seat "Mom, why did you name me 'Gabriella'?"
Me: "What?!... I L-O-V-E your name!"
Gabriella: "You should have named me Naomi."

I literally felt my heart break into a million pieces.  I devoured every baby name book I could get my hands on while I was pregnant with her to make such an important decision!  And here she was telling me she "hates" her name.

I was undecided for quite some time on what to name her.  At about 7 months of my pregnancy, I had it narrowed down to Claudia, Isabella, Monica and of course, Gabriella.  I decided early on, as when I named Marko, that my children's names had to be beautiful (in my opinion) in both English and Spanish, and that they would be pronounced correctly in both languages.  There are some beautiful names in Spanish, but when they are pronounced in English (or at least attempted), they literally get slaughtered.  I absolutely didn't want that for my kids.
So, as my scheduled C-section date of May 17th came closer, I finally decided on Gabriella because it means "God is my strength."  And I wanted it spelled with two l's rather than just the one.  I seriously put lots and lots of thought on her name.  I mean, it is an important decision, after all.
And she hates it. Ugh.

I guess I could chalk this up to Karma because I remember having this same conversation with my mom at about the same age.  And I regret it.
Especially when my mom told me that I had been named in honor of her baby sister that had passed away as an infant.
Yeah, I felt so incredibly small and so stupid for complaining about my name.

My son, Marko, on the other hand, has never once complained about his name.  Even though throughout his entire life, he has had to put up with having somebody inevitably say "Polo" every.  single.  time.  his name is called.  It doesn't seem to bother him.  He has had to hear that so much that he might have thought his name was Marko Polo for at least the first two years of his life!  Poor kid.  Other names I considered for him were Aaron and Robert.  Oh, and the reason his name is spelled with a K rather than the traditional C, is because I lost a bet with the hubby on whether our son would have a full head of hair or not.  He didn't. (:
Marko's name means "War like," which is pretty fitting.  I was in labor for almost 48 hours and after pushing for about 8 hours (NOT kidding!), he was delivered by emergency C-section.  We both almost died during the delivery, so yes...war like is perfect.

One reason for his name is, coincidentally, in honor of my uncle, my mom's oldest brother, that passed away the year I was born.  His name was Marcos, and I wanted some variation of that name.  And also...my son may or may not carry the name of the artist playing while he was conceived.  Haha.  Kidding.....sort of.

Anyway, all this to say that this is how I ended up with my name.  And I have embraced it ever since I found out the reason my mom decided on it.
Thanks, Mom!