What's in a Name?

Some of you have heard the story of how we decided on the name Cecilia.  But since we were keeping it a complete secret from everyone (still can't believe we pulled that off!) we could never really tell the whole story.  So here it is...


In August of 2013, when I was only 5 weeks pregnant, Jay and I took a trip to Italy.  We spent the first night, August 13th, in Pisa.  That evening we took a stroll through the town to find a place for dinner.  The B&B we were staying at had recommended a few places and as it was gorgeous night we decided to walk past each and check out their menus before settling on one.  As we walked hand-in-hand along the winding streets and alleyways, we started talking about baby names.  We had only found out we were pregnant just over a week before so it was all very new and exciting.  We went back and forth between throwing out slightly ridiculous ideas to make each other laugh and voicing names for actual consideration.  Being in Italy inspired me to think of my dear friend Stef, whose full name is quite Italian - Stefania Cecilia.  I said Cecilia out loud without giving it much thought.  It was only upon hearing myself say it that I realized I really liked it.  Much to my surprise, Jay really liked it too.  We both also loved the nickname Ceci (or C.C., which is what her initials would be).  And just like that, we decided that Cecilia was a definite contender.  We continued chatting about names when, minutes later, we turned down a road to make our way towards the next restaurant on our list. Jay stopped short, eyes wide, and pointed to the street sign.  I could barely believe it - via Santa Cecilia (which translates to Saint Cecilia Street).  It felt like fate.  We knew right then and there that if we had a girl her name would be Cecilia (and at the moment I became pretty sure it would indeed be a girl).  We were so confident in our decision we even took a picture of the street sign:

And here's the street on a map of Pisa:

Her middle name took a little more thinking about.  In the end, we decided to use Kathleen after my godmother.  It's also the name of Jay's great aunt (his Nana's sister) so that was an added bonus.

And that's the story of Cecilia's name.  Thankfully, the name seems to suit her perfectly - we couldn't be happier!