Picking a name for your unborn child is hard. Uh, stating the obvious here. I quickly discovered that some of the names I thought would be cool ended up sounding retarded in reality. I always went through the process of imagining introducing my daughter to people and seeing what their response would be. Who wants a life of confused faces and ‘whaaa’ and ‘how do you spell that?’. Turns out we haven’t necessarily avoided that with Amelie, but it could have been worse. It could have been:
Arya
Ok, I have to admit that this was totally and completely inspired by the character in Game of Thrones – oh the shame! But, in my defense, I was reading the book when baby was conceived so it will always have some resonance for me. And of course the character Arya is a feisty kid who’s dark haired and could easily be the spawn of my beloved. See how strong her eyebrows are?
Arya only lasted about a day and a half. We ended up deciding we’d probably spell it Aria because Brendan has a problem with y’s in names. Which is utter nonsense and quite personally insulting. A better reason is that Aria is Italian for ‘melody’ and Brendan’s big into music, so that could have been the official, non-embarrassing explanation. In the end though, given the way Irish people would pronounce Aria, especially those who might be – let’s steer away from PC here – complete knackers, it would have ended up sounding like a drunken query rather than a name. (Are-ya. Are ya fookin jokin?)
Juno
I studied Classics in college, so I always thought it would be kind of cool to use something from one of the Greek or Roman epics. Athena was high on my list but Brendan was never convinced. We did agree on Juno though. She was the queen of the gods in Roman mythology. Can’t get much better than that.
The main sticking point was that I’d already chosen Jane (my Mum’s name) as a middle name and, let’s face it, Juno Jane does not sound right. It could be some sort of karate move. Plus she’d have to shorten it to JJ and wear a wide-brimmed hat.
Oh yeah, and of course there’s the film Juno. I love Juno. The film and the character. The problem is that you’d be forever stuck with the teenage pregnancy bit which is not quite so cool. And definitely not an association I want my daughter to make when she’s older. I’m sure we’ll have enough problems battling a teenager from South County Dublin without going near the idea of underage sex.
Amelie
NO, NOT LIKE THE FILM! Honestly, this really wasn’t the reason we chose it. Yes, it’s a good film. Ok, it’s a great film. Actually, it’s one of my favourite films. Yes, I did teach myself to play that little tune on the piano. And, admitedly, I have played that soundtrack quite a lot. Yes I played it when I was pregnant. And yeah, ok, I did imagine playing it to the actual Amelie. Ok, fine, I’m playing it right now. But no, that’s not why we chose it. I have a cousin called Amelie. Seriously! I always thought it was such a pretty name. It’s been filed away in the back of my head for years. Why are you looking at me like that? This is the truth! Ugh. No-one will ever believe me.
