Our Little Mama

Many people have asked us how Alma got her name. Sometimes we wonder the same.

During the course of the pregnancy, we talked about many names. While Joshua was open to anything (with occasional strong vetoes to certain names), my taste varied greatly and daily. Honestly, Joshua had a difficult time keeping up with our running list because it changed so often and so widely. Since we didn't find out the gender beforehand, we had to work on finding two suitable names. The boy's selection was easily decided.  However, I just couldn't seem to decide on a girl's name.

Before I was pregnant, I went through stages of liking Elliott and then Sasha. When I was first pregnant, I was sure our little girl would be a Monica. Towards the middle of the pregnancy, I was stuck on Natalie. However, this is with tons of Penelopes, Reeses, Fionas and Iones thrown in for good measure. I dually loved and hated each female name that came up. Eventually, I started driving myself (and Joshua) a little crazy with my constant research and chatter about names. So we decided to stop trying.

Two months before Alma was born, we said that we would leave the name up to inspiration on the day that the baby was born. Although, I had lapses back into the freak-out, like when I spent 3 hours at the bookstore on my due date looking at baby naming books. So when we packed up our things for the hospital, we included a list of 26 girl names that we liked with our initials besides the ones that were our top picks.

After we gave birth and we were sitting in the delivery room together with no one else around, the conversation went something like this:

"What do you think about names?"
"I'm not sure. Do you think she looks like an Alma?"
"Sure."
"Really?"
"Why not?"
"Well, then I think that should be her name."
"Sounds good."
"Wait, let me just look at the list and make sure that she doesn't look like any of the other names ... (*looks through list of names again*) ... yup, she's an Alma."
"Well, hello Miss Alma!"

And she did, and still does, look like an Alma.

We both love the name Alma for multiple reasons:

• Alma means "soul" in Spanish, which is a nice combination of the work that Joshua did in the Spanish-speaking churches of Coachella (southern California) and still does in Camden, New Jersey.
• Alma means "nourishing" in Latin (as in alma mater which translates to "nourishing mother"), which I feel is appropriate title for most first-born daughters who end up being "little mamas" in the family.
• When I worked at a homeless shelter for young women and their children in Eugene, Oregon, one of the little girls was named Alma. She was such a great little spirit and made me quickly fall in love with the name, which was new to me at that time.
• Just last week, I learned that Alma means "apple" in Kazakh. While it may seem silly, this really excited me because when I was in college I thought that Apple would be a cute middle name for my future imagined daughter. Then Gwyneth Paltrow named her daughter Apple and it ruined my plan as I didn't want folks to think I was copying a celebrity. So learning that Alma means apple, even in a language I don't speak, is kind of exciting.
• Lastly, it is just cute name that we think will transition well into adulthood.

Now we just have to figure out how to pronounce it ... but that's a matter for another day.