What about....... Lulu?????

So, Tuesday night, August 19, - after a tremendously long day due to some urgent matters in our work with refugees in our city - Billy and I plopped down on the couch to watch the Olympics. A lady named Lolo was racing and tragically lost the race (it was so sad!). Billy.... out of no where.... says, "I want to name our daughter Lolo." I - in shock that he had an opinion about it and that he actually liked the name Lolo - said, "Are you serious? Do you not like the name Aria?" He - after almost a year of calling our next daughter Aria (and praying over her with this name) - came out with the truth, "no, I don't like the name Aria." I was in disbelief. "Well, I don't know what to think about that but we are not naming her Lolo," I said. "What about Lulu?" he asked. Still in shock I tried to think about how I really felt about that.

Now I must say that it is a little hard for my country, east Texas man to say her name... Aria (which should be pronounced ahreeah - like the Latin word for "melody" and not "area" (aireeah) as in a 10x10 area. And some older people seem to have the same trouble (not that you're old, Billy, haha!) So I have often wondered if he would ever say it with ease.

But then there's that beautiful meaning of the name "Aria" - in Hebrew it means "lioness of God". I love that. It has directed how I have prayed over her. And when I show people her room, I say "this is Aria's room".

So I asked Libby about it yesterday. I said, "Libby, do you like the name Aria or Lulu better?" And she said, "Lulu baby sister." So I thought... well, maybe that's my answer. But when we went in Aria/Lulu's room I said, "so this is Lulu's room now?" And she said, "no, it's Aria's too." So that left me with no direction.

Since name meanings have importance to me I looked up some baby name websites and I found that Lulu can mean "famous warrior" or in Tanzanian (an African language) it means "pearl". Now I like that. The thing I liked about "Aria" is that it also means "song" which is Libby's middle name. But pearls are big in China and I always think of Libby as my little pearl - so "Lulu" meaning "pearl" was convincing enough to continue considering it.

So... my next place to receive some feedback is here. What do you think? Here are our options:

Aria Lulu - and call her Lulu
Lulu Hope - which is her current middle name and we'd leave the name "aria" behind forever
Aria Lu - and call her Lulu as a nickname
Lulu Aria
or Lulu Ari

Or do you just think Billy is crazy 'cause you like the name Aria so much? LOL! Don't answer that!

We'll let you know what we decide....

Until then,
cindy