Name Game

Gender Reveal
On May 19, Tal and I found out that we're having a baby girl...Hadley Victoria! We're so excited that another girl will be joining our family in October!

Prior to the ultrasound, Savannah had been begging for a baby brother, while Tal was hoping for a baby girl. In fact, a couple days before the ultrasound, Tal was praying with Savannah at bedtime and said, "Dear Lord, if it's not too late, please give us another girl just like Savannah." It was so cute!

During the ultrasound, the technician revealed Hadley's gender so quietly and casually that Tal and I almost missed it it. She said, "Here's the baby's arm, leg, and you're having a girl." I nudged Tal and said, "Did you hear that? We're having a girl!" Tal said, "Cool!" and told Savannah, "Did you hear that, kiddo? You're going to have a baby sister." Savannah started crying...she wanted a baby brother!

Hadley's Name
Hadley's name is a combination of Tal's first and middle name (Harold Talmadge). From the beginning, Tal and I thought it would be special to name our son or daughter after Tal since Savannah shares my middle name (Elaine). If we were having a boy, Tal and I would have named him Harold Talmadge IV and called him "Drew" since he would have been the 4th generation or "quaDRUple."

Tal and I got the idea for Hadley's name when we considered "Tad" as a boy's nickname for Talmadge. In the end, we decided to combine the "H" in Harold and the "-ad" in Talmadge to form "Had" or Hadley for a girl's name. In addition to its special meaning, we also like the name Hadley because it's easy to spell, easy to pronounce, and fairly unique. Tal and I chose the name the middle name Victoria because we felt it sounded a bit sophisticated and went well with our last name.

Name Game
Overall, Tal and I prefer classic names...nothing that sounds made-up or too trendy. We kept the following "guidelines" in mind when choosing baby names:

• We prefer names that are easy to spell and easy to pronounce.
• We prefer traditional spellings (which is why we chose Savannah instead of Savanna and Hadley instead of Hadleigh).
• We avoid names that that end in "-son" (like Madison) since our last name ends in "-son."
• We avoid super popular first names...so Hadley won't have five other girls in her class with the same name. The name Hadley was #111 in 2013 on the Social Security website. 

Here are some other baby names that Tal and I considered for first and/or middle names:

Girl Names

• Hallie (a combination of the "H" in Harold and "-al" in Tal)
• Riley (Riley was #45 in 2013. We crossed off this name after Tal's cousin named her daughter Riley in April.)
• Kaitlin (There's no universal spelling for Kaitlin--Caitlin, Katelyn, Kaitlyn, etc--and we were concerned that everyone would misspell our daughter's name.)
• Alexis
• Claire
• Natalie
• Kylie
• Ashlyn
• Sierra
• Sasha
• Brooke (for a middle name)

Boy Names
Nicknames for Harold:

• Harry
• Hal
• Hank
• Rollie
• Ollie

Nicknames for Talmadge:

• Tad

Nicknames for IV:

• Chip
• Quad
• Ford
• Trevor