Dont order that monogrammed receiving blanket just yet...

I think we're going to change Sabine's middle name. Sabine was never a question but I really struggled with the middle name. I went into the hospital with a number of possibilities and figured that when we saw her we would just know which one fits. Well that didn't happen before we left the hospital and the last thing I ended up doing before we could leave was to go back through the birth certificate papers and write in 'Lorelai' because that had been the front-runner for the span of my pregnancy and we figured we'd treat it as the default name since we weren't getting a particular 'feeling'.

In the few days that we've been home with her, Sabine just doesn't seem to evoke a Lorelai vibe. We love the name, but for some reason it doesn't suit her. The one that keeps popping into my head is one that was mostly a fleeting suggestion. I am a person obsessed with baby names so this decision is one that is very important to me and I have put way too much serious though into.

In the beginning of my pregnancy I decided that I wanted my baby to have the same first two initials as me because our last names would be different. I am Stacey Leigh, Sabine Lorelai would be perfect. The second syllable of Sabine is stressed so the middle name needs to have a certain ring to it to make up for the flat sound of the 'ine'. Also, Zach's last name has a beginning sound that makes it awkward to use a name ending in the long 'e' sound or the short 'a' sound. This eliminates a great number of names. Lorelai works as well because that would give she and Jacob the same number of syllables in all their names, 2-3-3. I like when things work out that way.

The new middle name does not start with an 'L' and it is only two syllables. Who cares, right? Well I'm trying to get over that. Those are my only reservations. The name I think we're going to go with has meaning for me on a number of levels. That pretty much makes it a tie, but the thing that's got us seriously thinking about changing it is that Zach and I both came to the conclusion independently of one another that Lorelai just doesn't fit and we didn't say anything to each other until a few days later.

Anyway, that's that for now. A lot of people ask about where Sabine came from (and they mispronounce it - which I actually didn't think would be an issue - it's Sa-bean). There was an ancient tribe of women in Italy called the Sabine Women, but I first became aware of the name when I read Griffin and Sabine as a teenager. I rediscovered the book when Jacob was a baby. I had planned to name him Olivia Grace if he was a girl and would have used that name this time but it started getting popular after he was born. I was in search of a very different name and then I came across the trilogy while we were in Barnes & Noble. So that's where it's from. Sabine is the German version and Sabina is the Italian version (unless I've got that backwards).