The Name Game

It was just a short while after we found out I was expecting that we picked out baby names. We wanted to use a family name and we wanted the name our child would go by to be his/her first name. In honor of my paternal grandfather we picked Walter as our boy name. For our girl name, we decided to use my maternal grandfather's middle name, Colegate. Knowing full well that if we had a girl and named her Colegate we'd call her Cole, we opted to shorten the name so she wouldn't have to spend the first day of school every year correcting her teachers.

With first names pick out,  it was time to come up with middle names. For our boy name, we considered the names of the Slaton men ultimately deciding on Peter's father's name, Phillip. It was relatively quickly decided that our boy name would be Walter Phillip.  Sidenote: I can't say whether or not we'll use Walter Phillip down the road. We won't keep the unused boy name in reserve since Walter and Phillip are both family names. The names should be available for any child-bearing family member to use.

Our girl middle name took a bit more time. We considered names from both sides of our family but failed to find a name that flowed well with Cole. It didn't take long to realize we wanted an über-feminine middle name to balance Cole. Peter and I started to generate lists of names we found to be "very girly." While we considered a few names pretty seriously, we ultimately decided to use the name Annabel. Unlike our other names, Annabel can be spelled several different ways. Conveniently, one of my dearest friend's middle name is Annabel, spelled A-n-n-a-b-e-l-l-e, so we chose to use her spelling of Annabelle for the girl middle name. Thus, the name Cole Annabelle was born.

Since Cole's arrival there has been a tiny bit of confusion as to what we are calling her. I should say for the record, we are calling her Cole. She doesn't have a double name and we're not calling her Annabelle, just Cole. She's already received an inspired nickname from one of her grandfathers, Colibelle, but to us she's Cole... or Miss Cole... or Baby Girl... or Birdie... or Little Miss... Well admittedly she has a few nicknames. We'll have to see if any stick.