What's in a Name

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

~William Shakespeare

Avery Fisher

Avery’s name was easy to pick out.  My husband’s favorite name for a boy was Avery, and I loved the name when he suggested it.  According to babycenter, Avery means “leader of the elves”.  It has a unique (pretty silly) meaning, so that made the name even better! 

His middle name, Fisher, was not originally going to be his middle name.  Up until I was 26 weeks pregnant with him, he was Avery James.  We were going to save the name Fisher for our second child, should it have been a boy.  But we decided to go ahead and use it just in case we didn’t have a second boy (good decision!).  That is how he became Avery Fisher!

Selah Lynn

So many people have asked where we came up with the name Selah.  When I was in high school, one of my best friend’s sisters named her baby Selah, which was also the name of my favorite Christian band at the time.  I absolutely fell in love with the name!  The band, Selah, pronounces their name “Say-la” and there is an explanation for why on their website. 

Selah is Hebrew and is actually pronounced “See-la”(but in my opinion, that is not as pretty).  It is a word found in the book of Psalms.  One of my favorite verses using Selah:

“You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah”

 –Psalm 32:7 NIV

Popular meanings for it that I have found are “pause and reflect on what was just sung”, “amen”, and “to lift the voices in praise”, all of which I like!

When we found out Selah was a girl, we were beginning to second guess our girl name decision.  We knew people would always be mispronouncing and misspelling it.  So we agreed to go with another favorite, Chloe.  I tried so hard to call her Chloe.  I even went so far as to paint decorative letters and hang them on her wall.

But, I kept accidentally calling her Selah.  I kept this to myself, because Sam seemed really excited about the name Chloe.  Then one day, out of nowhere, he tells me he doesn’t want to name her Chloe anymore.  I was really relieved, because it never sat right with me.  It is a beautiful name, just wasn’t right for our baby girl.  So, at 35 weeks pregnant, we switched her name back to Selah, though we weren’t positive we wanted to spell it that way.  We spent the next 4 weeks deciding between “Selah” and “Sayla”.   I asked others for their opinions, I spelled the name out on paper, I searched the internet, and still kept flipping back and forth between the two.  I really wanted the original spelling; however, “Sayla” is phonetically correct.  People would say it right and most likely spell it correctly.  But in the end, I just could not bring myself to spell it any other way than Selah.  I have had that name picked out for about 10 years.  We actually didn’t make it “official” until she was born.  There was absolutely no doubt once she was born, that she was our little Selah Lynn. 

As for her middle name, Lynn, it is my mother’s middle name!  I have my maternal grandmother’s middle name, and now Selah has her maternal grandmother’s middle name!

Oh, and funny little side note:  one of our other favorite names was Olivia.  According to www.babynames.com that name means “elf army”.  That would have gone well with “leader of the elves” (Avery), don’t you think?  =)