About a year ago we came on nameberry searching for new name ideas for our adopted kids Joly (now 6) and [name_m]Mac[/name_m] (originally Macklin which no one called him fully by) (3).
For our daughter’s new first name we were between [name_f]Josephine[/name_f], [name_f]Juliette[/name_f] and [name_f]Julia[/name_f] but ultimately she picked [name_f]Josephine[/name_f] which I recall her saying was the prettiest name in the world to her and she showed me some books with characters named [name_f]Josephine[/name_f] at the library. In retrospect it reminded me of [name_f]Anne[/name_f] [name_f]Shirley[/name_f] wishing her name were [name_f]Cordelia[/name_f]. A year passed and she still didn’t change her mind, always introducing herself as [name_f]Josephine[/name_f] to new people (and in kindergarten last month), so we decided to take the plunge and change her name officially. It was extremely important for us to keep her original name of Joly which we call her by among close family and friends as her nickname, and I like that [name_f]Josephine[/name_f] [name_f]Lily[/name_f] can perfectly shorten to Joly. I think it was a win win situation for my husband and I who had always dreamt of having a daughter to be able to have a hand in naming her, but also to keep that piece of her identity with her as well.
As for [name_m]Mac[/name_m], since he’s still very small we chose to call him [name_u]Max[/name_u] [name_m]Benjamin[/name_m], inspired by [name_m]Benny[/name_m] [name_u]Alden[/name_u] from the Boxcar Children which I read as a girl and am reading now with my kids. We know it’s not a big change from [name_m]Mac[/name_m] to [name_u]Max[/name_u], but [name_u]Max[/name_u] felt more complete to us and I personally grew up on [name_m]Maxwell[/name_m] St. and that’s where my parents lived still until [name_f]May[/name_f] of this year when my Mother passed away, so its very sentimental.
