-It needs to be unique, without being too yewneek... Know what I mean? (so I try to avoid the top 100 lists... or at least the top 50)
-It needs to sound good with our last name
-I like the idea of at least one of the names having some meaning (so a family name, or after someone admirable, or something we like, etc.)
-The spelling needs to make sense. I would like the majority of people to be able to spell it right the first time they try.
-Likewise if you are reading it I would like the majority of people to be able to pronounce it right the first time.
-It's not a must, but Dennis and I both like the idea of being able to pronounce it in Spanish & English. It works with Clara... Maylee not so much. Oh well. That would be more like "Meli" but that would just be weird in English.
-I also had a hard time because I like lots of names that sound very similar to mine (my all time fave name: Elena... Elena & Alea? A bit too sing-songey. Same with Amira... I love Arabic names. Dennis wasn't too fond of that one, but it got ruled out for this reason as well.)
Anyway, Clara's name came from a few places. Her first name isn't necessarily named after anyone in particular, but I've always liked the nutcracker ballet and Dennis knew a cute little girl on his mission with the same name. For her middle name we looked at both of our mothers' names (Teri Lyn & Mary Lynelle). How the heck do you combine Mary & Teri? She was nicknamed Mary-Teri for a while before she was born by grandpa John. haha. I guess that's better than my dad's nickname for all of our unborn children: Phyllis. (He wanted me to be a Phyllis...) But back to Clara... We decided to combine their middle names and use Lynelle since Aunt KP has the middle name of just Lyn and we didn't want to steal hers verbatim.
Maylee's name was a little harder to decide on. We narrowed it down to four names that we both would've been fine with any of them, but we couldn't both agree on just one. We numbered them 1-4 of our most to least favorite and were completely opposite on our line up. Hmph... So we decided to go with one of the two "middle favorite" names. Dennis pretty much let me (or made me- haha) decide on her first name. I had only ever heard the name Maylee once before. My young women's leader in Utah was Maylee Lemon. She is a tall, beautiful, and kind woman and I've always liked her name. After deciding on Maylee we have since heard of a few more Maylees out there, but I like that it's unique without being weird.
Her middle name was EVEN HARDER to decide. For most of the last few weeks it was actually going to be Jane after my favorite author (can you guess who? haha. I'm a classic romantic when it comes to literature.) It meant something... But we always thought it would mean a little more if it was a family name. In the hospital they give you paperwork to fill out for the baby's birth certificate. A couple hours before we left they asked for the paperwork so we could be released... The middle name spot was still blank. I asked for five minutes and we debated on 3 names. Finally I just told Dennis it was up to him because I felt like I made the final choice with her first name. Dennis decided on Renae after my dad, Reyn. We were kinda up in the air about the spelling though. We obviously wanted something phonetically correct, but weren't sure how to go about it. We didn't want to use the y because it was a little too weird spelling. We decided not to use the e accent because we thought it would make things difficult when it came to typing on an English keyboard. We also didn't want to use the double e because that was just a bit too many e's (maylee renee?). So we went with the ae like my middle name is spelled (Shalae- pronounced like the french chalet) which was also a contender for her middle name so we kind of mixed that in too.
So there you have it!
Miss Maylee Renae Peters
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