Abigail

This is so strange to me.  I don't think I ever looked up the meaning of Abigail.  Trever was the one who actually picked her name.  If it had been my choice her name would have been Audrey.  I loved both names.  I tend to defer to Trever for our children's names.

I can't remember what our top three choices were when Nathan was born.  But I remember Trever making the choice, saying something like "if you'll do Nathan Michael then that's my choice".  I was high on excitement... of course I agreed.  He chose Michael as a middle name to honor my family, since his family gets the last name.

Natalie Ann was an easy choice, it had been our favorite girl name with our first pregnancy and we still loved it two years later.  Trever wanted Ann as a middle name to keep the tradition of middle names from my family, and my middle name is Ann.  I had a different middle name picked out, but his choice was touching.

When we had Andrew it took us a couple of days to give him a name.  We were deciding between Joseph (not my first choice) and Andrew.  Again, I deferred to Trever.  I wrote out each of the names with three different middle names (Michael, Lee - Trever's middle name and Kenneth - Trever's dad's name).  Trever choose Andrew Michael.  He wanted the boys to have matching middle names.

When we found out we were having a girl with this last pregnancy it only took a day or so before we named her.  Abigail had been Trever's top choice for a girl name when we had Andrew (we didn't know what we were having until he was born).  Audrey was my top choice.  Trever really felt that Abby sounded the happiest.  So once we cleared it with my friend Abby, it was a go.  Abigail Ann won out.

Somehow in the process I never bothered to see what the name meant.

Impulsively I just checked: "her father's joy"

Wow, how fitting.  What a beautiful meaning for her name. It's happy. Each of our children could be described as "father's joy".  I think that is because our kids are awesome and because Trever is such an awesome dad!

Just for fun, here are the meanings of the other kid's names:

Nathan: Gift of God
Andrew: Man, Warrior
Natalie: Christmas Day or Christ's birthday