Growing Up Geeky: What's in a name?

A few people have asked how we decided on the name "Carina" for our little girl. I thought I had told you, but when I went back to look at our name announcement post, I realized I had neglected to include the reason, silly me.

When it came to names, M and I did not agree at all. Those I liked; he thought they sounded like stripper names. The names he preferred; all I could envision was old ladies hunched over their canes. We couldn't find a single name that we both loved, not even close.

After trolling baby name sites for the gazillionth time I decided to try something different. M is Italian, and our last name is very Italian sounding, so why not take a quick peek at a list of Italian names? As I browsed through the list, one stood out: Carina. Simple, pretty, classic. It means beloved, dear.

I liked it. I really liked it. I called M over and showed it to him. He really liked it, too. Since we hadn't agreed on any names up to this point, and we both really liked it, we decided then and there that if we had a girl, we would name her Carina.

After finding out that we were having a girl, we started referring to her as "Carina" instead of "the baby". We became even more attached to the name. Then, as we saw her for the first time, our "Carina", it was perfect. We love her and her beautiful name more and more each day.

Sidenote: it wasn't until after we chose the name Carina that a colleague of M's - another organic chemistry geek :) pointed out that Carina was the name of a constellation in the southern sky. It contains the second brightest star in the night sky, Canopus. The Carina nebula (below) is also part of the constellation. Not bad for a namesake, right?