Naming baby

It is now just over two years after we named our daughter, and as I think she has grown into her name wonderfully, it is a good time to ponder on why we called her what we did.

This little person IS Verity, she couldn't possibly be anyone else. Her name suits her so well and no doubt I would say that now about any name we had chosen, but the fact that she wears it so well makes it worth re-visiting the decision process.

Naming our baby felt like a VERY big moment indeed, with a big responsibility on our shoulders.

I don't know if the older first time mum finds choosing a name any harder than anyone else. They shouldn't do because they've had long enough to think about it.

After all, many little girls (and boys of course!) will have thought about what they would call their own children since they named their first dolls and for me this was a long time ago. The thought that the time to do it for real was finally here was quite daunting.

Also, I was pretty sure that I wouldn't be naming any siblings for her so this was my only chance to get it right!

Then there's all the other things you have to consider, including the potential for bullying, what the initials would be, all the possibilities for silly nicknames, and would it sound right in the responsible job we hoped that she'd one day have?

My husband and I had had "the talk". You know the one, in those early heady days of a relationship when you are planning a hypothetical future and you decide what ALL your children will be called! Although with us, the conversation was definitely more on the fantasy side, as we were both aware that children may not be on the cards.

Anyway, the result was that we both knew that we didn't want to use a name that was really popular because there were bound to be loads of them in her class at school or around her throughout her life.

We wanted something that was a bit different, that would make her stand out, but not in a weird way.

A boy's name was easy, we had always agreed that a boy would be named after hubby's late father David. Then have my dad's name James but put my grandad's name William in the middle as it was too cruel to name a child David James - the calamitous goalkeeper!

I did have little dreams that I could give a nod to Liverpool Football Club with a name. Ian perhaps, after Rush, my all time favourite player, and I would have loved to have had twins in order to call them Steven and Gerrard - and probably consign the poor children to a lifetime of bullying in the process.

David is a nice traditional name but definitely not over used these days so seemed perfect.

Then came our 20-week scan, Although you can never be 100% sure, it didn't show up any "bits" so we concentrated on girl's names.

I had always hankered after an Emily - after the Bronte. However, when you wait as long as me to have a child, you find that you know loads of other people around you who have called their little girls that - so out went Emily!

Still on a Liverpool theme I also thought about Scarlett or Ruby because they signified "red" - or Anne, short for Anfield!

This didn't go down well with my Coventry supporting husband though, and when he suggested "Ricoh" I kind of took his point!

In the end, we were looking through a baby name book and saw Verity and both liked it and kind of "knew" it was right.

I liked the fact it means "truth" which is something that's important to both of us, both in our relationship and our work.

There was another more obscure reason.

My nan, Kathleen, and her best friend Gladys never liked their original names so decided they would call each other by what they always wanted to be named. My nan got Gladys to call her Maxine and Gladys asked my nan to call her Verity and it always stuck in my mind as I never knew her as anything else.

My niece's second name is Kathleen, so I liked that Verity went with that and hoped that somewhere, nan likes it too!

Hubby liked it because it's the name of the original Dr Who producer - Verity Lambert - but as she was also the first really powerful woman in the media that was fine by me.

All we had to wait for then was the various celebrities who were due around the same time and hope that they hadn't had the same idea. Luckily Jennifer Ellision had a boy and Zoe Ball's daughter was named Nelly - NOT on our list - NOT on your nelly!

V's second name Alice is after Alice in Wonderland (the film was released just after she was born and we both liked the book!) We thought about it as a first name but I kept thinking of the song "Who the f*** is Alice?!" and I just couldn't do it.

We then added both of her grandmother's names, giving her four in total, because as we were only having one child we didn't want to upset anyone!

I still keep coming across names that I like and it's sometimes hard realising that I won't go through that process again but we are thinking about getting another dog so we can enjoy naming that instead.

However, I have promised hubby he can have responsibility for that but I will have to point out that I will NOT be calling out "McSheffery" in the park!