I totally deserve what I’m getting. When my older brothers had their kids, my sister and I were certainly not subtle in our mockery. The Manhattan sibling had Mireille (oh goodness how Americans would butcher that French “r”) and Henderson Doyle (excuse me, but is your son a law firm?), while Colorado sibling had Kinley Rain (after Mt. McKinley) and Waverly Snow (would a third child have been “Sleet” or “Hail,” or which other form of precipitation?).
Now it’s my turn, and it’s a bitter pill. I’ll never forget one parent’s first reaction to our eldest’s name, Aurelia: “It’s too bad it’s such an ugly name when pronounced in the English.” And then there were the many whispers from siblings commenting that no one knew how to pronounce the name and were afraid to try (for the record, just watch this scene from Love Actually).
I just got off the phone with Evelyn Adelina’s namesake, a kind, often supportive, and inspiring woman. Her response: “Well, the two names really don’t go well together.” *face palm*
At least we make ’em relatively cute. Hopefully their characters will be strong enough to carry the tragic names we’ve chosen:
anna in med school 
I think their names are way, way better than the French chick, the law firm, and the weather report. BWDIK?
I’ve been reading your blog on and off since seeing the NYT’s article about your family. Although never commenting before, I was inclined to this time. I think the names of both of your daughters are beautifully strong, feminine, and unique. And Evelyn Adelina flows wonderfully, if someone doesn’t like it then the middle name is so rarely used anyway that it isn’t of great importance. Growing up I often lamented to my mother that I wished she had given me a more unique name (having to use my first and last name in school to distinguish amongst the other 5 Lauren’s in my class grew tiresome) or at least something with meaning or significance, rather than choosing from the most popular list of the time. So Aurelia and Evelyn should be proud growing up with such a caring mother and if someone isn’t capable of pronouncing the names correctly, well nicknames work great too!
i love the names you have chosen. I admit i did have a hard time pronouncing Aurelia. But it is beautiful and both names are older which i like anyway so they are great come backs. like Olivia. And the nicknames are short and fun. Neither one of them will be hard to separate in a class. You guys ROCK!!!
I loved that the first one is named after a very nice hymn. I was sort of hoping for another. There are several “winners” (Hyfrydol, Diademata) and some, well, not so much (Helmsley, Horsely, Engelberg).
It could be worse. One particularly inappropriately pious pair of parents (try saying that ten times, fast) named their lad “Had-not-Christ-died-for-thee-hadst-thou-been-damned”. His surname was Bones and he went through life being called “Damned Bones”.
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