What's in a Name Anyway?

We had a lovely woman stop by tonight to drop off some gifts for the wee Papaya. This is one of Eric's former gym clients when he worked at a club downtown. Although we don't know her very well at all, she has taken quite a shine to Eric and by extension, the rest of us. 

Anyway, she came by, laden with gifts (yeah!) and a pie (shouldn't have it, but, yeah!). And, as she's oohing and aahing over the baby, she tells me how much she LOOOOVES the name Kaya. 

We have had a very positive response to the name overall, even though I was a little bit concerned that people would consider it a "made up" type of name. I had never heard it before, but one day, on my commute home from work, it just popped into my head. I mentioned it to Eric (who hated practically every name I ever suggested) who actually liked it. Regardless, it does exist in baby name guides. 

For the vast majority of my pregnancy this baby was going to be named Rachel, which was the name we had picked out should Kieran have been a girl instead of a truck/train loving boy. However,  as my second pregnancy went the on, the name started to sound tired and decidedly blah. When people would ask if we had any names picked, I would say that we were leaning towards Rachel and we often got a very lukewarm response. Even my family was iffy on the name and it just started to feel wrong, so during my 8th month of pregnancy, we made the switch to Kaya, kept Rachel as a middle name and never looked back. 

According to one baby book the name Kaya is of Scandinavian decent and means "pure". Rachel means "innocent lamb". So, yes, our daughter is named "pure, innocent lamb Lam." Even with the double, "lamb/lam" I like the gentle flow of the meaning. 

Our guest tonight is of Japanese descent and as she's telling me how much she loves the name, she leans in to me and whispers, even though there is nobody else around except the baby: "Kaya means 'mosquito net' in Japanese." 

Sweet.