She’s abounding with creativity and kindness. Her dimpled cheeks and blue eyes melt my heart. And as of today, she is eleven years old. While I’m not sure how so much time has passed already, I am sure that I’m grateful to be her mom.
If I could somehow make a business out of naming other people’s babies, I would be topping the Forbes list. I love, love, love baby names. There is a lot of responsibility and maybe even a little stress when selecting the name for your baby.
Naming Harper was no different.
The morning she was born, I was still Googling names. The top contenders were Lucy or Harper. We didn’t decide on the name until an hour after she was born. Our hospital reserved the first hour for us exclusively, but we knew we had a waiting room filled with eager grandparents and extended family.
I still think she totally could have pulled off the name Independence, but I got shot down on that one. With a 4th of July birthday, it seemed perfect. But me telling Matt, “We can call her Indy” didn’t sell the name.
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We picked Harper after author Harper Lee and the beautiful, historic West Virginian town of Harper’s Ferry. In high school, most will read Lee’s book about racial injustice in 1960’s Alabama. And I hope that when this sweet little nugget came across wrong-doing in the world, she’d go full John Brown in Harper’s Ferry holding up an armory fighting for what she believes in. Okay so maybe slightly less wild-eyed and definitely not tried for treason, but you get the idea. ⠀
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We picked Clementine because it reminded me of my favorite part of our hometown. Harper is the fourth generation to live here—in a place filled with magic, a place filled with people who will know her sweet face and her story. Our community is at the heart of her name. I hope she serves it well. ⠀
It’s a big name. But with her kindness, intelligence, creativity, and spunk, she embodies every syllable. Happy birthday, baby Clementine.
