Yesterday at 08:44 [name_f]Estella[/name_f] [name_f]Lucinda[/name_f] [name_f]Elisabeth[/name_f] [name_u]Raven[/name_u], our fourth little one was born. Mostly we’ve been calling her [name_f]Essie[/name_f]. Her siblings, [name_f]Seraphine[/name_f], [name_f]Isadora[/name_f] and [name_m]Alaric[/name_m] haven’t met her yet due to local Covid restrictions but are excited to when we go home!
Big thanks to everyone on Nameberry for all their support, as finding the name was hard work, but we got there in the end. I’ve always found my kids names very early in pregnancy but in this case we were going up until two weeks before the birth when I was struck by new inspiration.
I wanted a name which was literary and celestial, which worked in [name_f]English[/name_f] and [name_m]German[/name_m] so both our families could pronounce it. [name_f]My[/name_f] husband has a strong preference for longer names so we were looking for something three syllables plus.
After months of anxiety, I made a mood board with lots of different names on accompanied by images which gave off the vibe I was looking for. In the end, I added [name_f]Estella[/name_f], a name which had never been on our list, just because I liked the attached image. [name_f]My[/name_f] eye kept getting drawn back to it and I started to realise, not only did it contain some of my favourite sounds, but as a longer literary and celestial name, it fit our naming criteria too. I’m very fond of Dickens and a plus point for naming one of my older daughters was the link to [name_f]Dora[/name_f] Spenlow in [name_m]David[/name_m] Copperfield. The ‘star’ meaning just made [name_f]Estella[/name_f] seem even more magical. Finding out that estel means ‘hope’ in Quenya and Sindarin, as a big Tolkien nerd who had considered several names meaning hope, was also a plus!
Lucinda is a name I’ve liked for a long time, and was one my husband kept coming back to as a strong choice for a middle name. All of our kids have a family honour name and I was very fond of my Great Aunty [name_f]Lucy[/name_f] who was a real character, she also shared her name with one of my oldest friends. The [name_f]Lucinda[/name_f] variant has always seemed very sophisticated to me. The literary connection for [name_f]Lucinda[/name_f] is great. Spanish is one of my favourite languages so I love that it was invented by Cervantes for [name_m]Don[/name_m] [name_m]Quixote[/name_m].
In early pregnancy we had a very difficult time and frequently ended up in the maternity ER of our local hospital. As a Catholic hospital, there are a lot of devotions to assorted saints around the place. The icon of St [name_f]Elisabeth[/name_f] of Thuringia is the one closest to the maternity ER and I spent a lot of time fervently praying to her that this pregnancy would be successful. It was quite important to me to honour this in my daughter’s name.
Finally [name_u]Raven[/name_u], it was important to me to include a gender neutral name and I’m a big fan of all things crows and ravens, as might be clear from my username. [name_u]Raven[/name_u] has actually been on my name list since my first combos as a teenager, where it was normally paired as a middle name for [name_u]Willow[/name_u]. [name_f]My[/name_f] son also has a corvid name, [name_m]Corbinian[/name_m], so it feels like a nice sibling link. [name_f]My[/name_f] husband is a big fan of more Gothic names and after having vetoed a couple of his favourites, this was a way for him to find himself in the name too.
At first, I was quite unsettled by adding a new name which had never been on our list before. Our oldest daughter is 14 so we have had a joint name list for quite a long time, with very little change to the long list even though the short list has varied. Then it came to me that [name_f]Estella[/name_f] [name_f]Lucinda[/name_f] means [name_f]Starlight[/name_f] and [name_f]Essie[/name_f] [name_f]Starlight[/name_f] sounds very much like [name_f]Cissy[/name_f] [name_f]Starlight[/name_f], the name of the protagonist of a novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo 9 years ago. Somehow, this made me feel as if we were destined to use the name some day.
I still wasn’t sure when she was born but she kept saying E e e e over and over again, it felt like she was trying to tell us her name!
For those of you who made it to the end of this novel length birth announcement, thank you again for all your support naming our little girl!
! I love her name!