Bean 3 Has a Name!

Well after much debate and discussion, Brandon and I have finally agreed on a name for our little girl.  You have to understand... Brandon and I have never really had to seriously consider what we would name a girl.  Sure, in the early stages of each pregnancy we had various names that we thought were "cute" for a girl, but we never had to really think about a little girl's name.  And now that we are having a girl, and this baby will be our last, we've spent lots of time making sure that this name is perfect for our one and only little girl.

When naming our boys, I wanted names that were strong, classic, do-anything names.  For example, I could see a "Will" as teacher, athlete, banker, lawyer, etc....  and I feel the same way about the name "Brooks".  For a girl's name, I want the same - a strong but pretty name.  I thought about how each name we considered would look on the desk of a writer, a banker, a doctor, and how it would look on her wedding invitations.  And then of course, I ran each name by our boys to see how they could pronounce each possibility.  Some were pretty funny - for instance, Caroline was "Caw-wow-wine" and Greer was "Gweeawr" - so although cute, those had to be eliminated.  Will was hung up on naming her Cheryl.  I found this hilarious, because I swear he doesn't know one single Cheryl - not a teacher, not a cartoon character, not even one of those obnoxious kids on Barney was named Cheryl.  After weeks and even months of insisting, much to my delight, he finally let it go.  Knowing my kid like I do, he would have totally called (and told everyone we know) that her name was Cheryl no matter what her name really was, so I'm glad he's over it.

Let's start with her middle name.  This one came to me one day while we were in the car.  My mama's middle name is "Jo" - named after her daddy and my grandfather.  Just "Jo".  Brandon's mama's middle name is "Ann" .... sooooo what better middle name for our little Bean than "Joann"?  That way, she has a piece of each grandmother (and a little bit of her great grandfather) in her name.  So sweet :)  There was no debating over that one.  We both agreed pretty quickly on her middle name - Joann.

We went 'round and 'round with the first name, but we eventually landed on a name that I believe is pretty and sweet, yet a little unexpected - Tessa :)

So our little Bean's name will be Tessa Joann Rutledge.

Why do I suddenly have the urge to go have something monogrammed??  Perhaps to make it more official??