What's in a Name?

You can read my last post about names here. 

I finished off the post saying we had a girl's name set. After our anatomy scan we felt relieved we didn't have to stress about boy names anymore (thank goodness, it was hard!).
Her middle name was already set at Lillian and has been set there for years. My dad's mom passed away when he was 11 and Lillian was her middle name. My dad always looks so sweet when he talks about his mom, you can tell she meant so much to him and I thought it would be a nice way to honour her. He talks about how much she loved to knit and make him clothing so I feel a connection to her even though I've never met her. 
For a first name I really fell in love with the nickname "Ellie". We knew we didn't want it to be her full name, I like her to have options later on if she wants something that sounds more adult. Steve and I both go by shortened versions of our full names (Christiane and Steven) and Ellie felt like more of a nickname.
We made a list of names Ellie could be short for:

• Elizabeth
• Elouise
• Eleanor
• Elena
• Elodie
• Anything ending in "belle" 

Elizabeth is my middle name and I know a few little girls named Elizabeth so we nixed that pretty quick. Of the rest of the names Eleanor was my favourite and Steve liked it too. We thought about it for a little while, it's not a common name these days which is nice (although I think Ellie is a popular nickname) and it sounded good with Lillian. 

Eleanor means "shining light" or "the bright one" 

Once we found out that we were having a girl we just started calling her Ellie. It just feels right and fun and exciting. We can't wait for our little shining light to get here :)