Her Name

We have had numerous questions about our little lady's name, so here's the post with all the details! We are very particular about our names in the sense that we want them to have meaning, heritage, and significance. Throughout Biblical history, and history itself, most people named their children a specific name based on its meaning or its attachment to something significant. No, we don't believe there's some mystical, spiritual thing behind it, we just wanted our children's names to be chosen with meaning behind it thats more than, "We just like it." 

Our little lady's full name is:

Penelope Mae Oren

We tossed around name after name if Baby O. was a girl, and Penelope stayed at the top of the list pretty much the entire time. The only other name we seriously considered was Mercy and you can read about that here in her birth story.

Where did her name come from? 

Penelope is named after my super sweet and endearing Grandma Penny, my Dad's mom. I was so immensely giddy to name a daughter after her that I was hoping and praying Baby O. was a girl. You hear all the time that people "grow into their name" and "live up to their name sake." We are hoping Miss Penelope grows up into the sweet, kind disposition of her Great Grandma Penny. Oh how happy I am to have a daughter named Penelope. 

Here's a picture of my Grandma Penny and me last summer. How adorable is she?!?! She is one rockin' Grandma who in her 80's, still works out at Curves 3 times a week. And, she has the sweetest, most adorable Boston accent ever! 

Mae was not chosen for its rhyming with Rae, which is Evie's middle name. That was one of my hesitations...are we going to have to come with similar middle names for every subsequent girl we have now that our first two are Rae and Mae? Or, are we going to have to endure that same question for the rest of our lives...."Oh did you want them all to rhyme?" But it is kind of cute, especially if we only ever have two girls. But we chose Mae because it is the middle name of Jon's Grandma Nellie, also his Dad's mom. Jon has never met his Grandma Nellie, as she and his Grandfather died in a plane crash before he was born. We have had the privilege over the last couple of years to hear more and more about his Grandparents. We have such a love for the Oren extended family and were very excited to honor the legacy of his Grandparents by naming our daughter after her Great-Grandma Nellie. 

What about a nickname? 

This is the question we get asked the most! We are not officially calling Penelope by a nickname, but using her full name "Penelope." We just really like the whole name. Yes, I know, it's soooooo long, as many of you have said, but, we know you can do it! Besides, it's easier for a girl to rock a long syllable name than it is a boy, and the name Mekonen has stuck solid. 

I'm sure you've heard us refer to her personally as Pip or Pippi, but we're going to have to tell you that that's just a family pet nickname given to her by her Daddy, so please don't be offended if we correct you. :) haha. The other name you might hear is Poppy which is what my sister has called her. But sorry again, it's an endearing family nickname, not a public one. :) 

Yes, we realize that it's a long name, and somewhere down the line it may get shortened, so we wanted to make sure we were the ones to choose the public nickname. If that ever were to happen, the nickname we have chosen is Nell. 

We are also fully aware that the entirety of these last three paragraphs can change at any point and she gets called something completely different than we planned. 

But for now, she is simply....Penelope