How Piper Got Her Name-O

“How’d you come up with the name Piper?” I get asked that often when people hear her name.

With Jack, it was easy because my grandpa Jack was dying when I was pregnant and he never had children of his own (married my grandma when her kids were older). Luckily, I was able to ask him if we could name our baby after him if we found out it was a boy. He was pleased and said yes.

With Piper, it was much more tricky. I wasn’t thinking of using a family name (no particular reason, just wasn’t). Pouring over movie credits (am I the only one that does that?), book authors, newspaper articles, fictional characters, books and online… I burnt Ben out by asking him too much (at least 3 names per day). He finally put his foot down and gave me the duty of picking the name and didn’t want me EVER to ask him what he thought of a name again (I was pretty bad). Well, that was even MORE pressure and I got more absorbed into the meanings and history of names. I kept a list of names that were possibilities…

• Greta
• Janie (thought I could get a discount at Janie & Jack children’s clothing store)
• Jillian (Jack & Jill — too much but I almost did… then thought of Lillian)
• Perri
• Simone
• Adde
• Livi (or Liv)
• Clarisse (too bad Hannibal Lecter ruined that name because it WAS pretty)
• Viane (pronounced vee-ann)
• Quinn (“wise” and Shannon means “old wise one”)
• Addelade
• Ava
• Cloe (what the… that doesn’t look right)
• Chloe
• Ivy
• Demi (Ben really hated this one but it was in my top 3)
• Julia (“youthful”)
• Juliana/Julianna (I had crossed out the 2nd N so it’d sound like yawn not ann)
• Emme
• Lyla (“from the island”)
• Lexy (one letter off sexy)
• Lexi (“valiant defender of mankind” and a former nickname of mine)
• Ella (“beautiful fairy woman”)
• Carmella (“golden” – my grandmothers name was Carmen)
• Carlie/Carly (“little, womanly”)
• Georgia
• Marilyn (too Manson these days)
• Sammi
• Dior
• Deja (too Déjà Vu like the strip club)
• Avalyn (might be a book title or township in Europe)
• Piper
• Luca
• Adela
• Mae
• Adel

My mom was at the airport on her way here when I called my dad and told him I thought of the name Piper out of the blue (didn’t read it or hear it although I have heard it through the media long ago). He liked it and called my mom at the airport to tell her the name. Before he could say it SHE said she just thought of Piper as a name for the baby. Doo do doo do!

The next day she and I took Jack to Park City to kill some time. While at the toy shop I found some handmade alphabet bead cubes and spelled out P I P E R to show my mom how cute the name looks. On a whim, I decided to spend the $2.50 and buy the beads whether or not that’s the name because it’d be a fun story to tell later.

The next day was my baby shower. One of the activities (I love to play games) was having the guests suggest baby names. Well, some of the names were ridiculous; Joette wrote down her name, Aunt Diane wrote “Princess Anastasia Diane” and a good neighbor writing Cere (like it’s short for Cereal).

Ben saw the list on the counter when he got home. Glancing through the suggestions, balking at the silly ones I mentioned, he said, “Who wrote Piper?” Because of our little rule about not asking about names I said, “Why?” He replied, “I LIKE it! That’s what we should name the baby – Piper!”