How Addison got her name

Back in November when we found out our family would be expanding by one, we picked out a boy name and agreed it on immediately, but when we started to talk about possible girl names, we just couldn't commit. We had so many picked out, some included Harper, Madeline and Reese, but we just couldn't say for sure which one we liked.

Our main stipulation to picking out a name was that it had to have a good meaning to it. Here's why. At the beginning of the school year I had my students do a lot of different activities with their names in order to get to know the other students in the classroom. One of the activities was to look up the meaning of their name and share it with the rest of the class. We didn't ever want her to have to do something like this and think "geeze mom and dad. What were you thinking?!" So Mike and I googled a name that we were almost set on, one that I have liked since I was about 11, and the meaning of it was "ugly head." That one was out! I still love the name, but Mike was dead set against it after that point.

The other stipulation to choosing a name was that I didn't want it associated with tons of kids at school. If you are a teacher, you feel me on this! It is so hard to say a name and not think of a particular student immediately. I didn't want to name her and always think of a student at school.

We also went back and forth as to which middle name we were going to end up using. We both liked Ann because Mike's grandma and my littlest sister both have Ann as their middle name. We thought that would honor both sides of the family with one name, but we also liked Dawn. Dawn is my middle name and my mom's middle name, so we thought that it would be cute if mom, mimi and baby all had the same middle name.

Then one day I got to looking at names on the internet and I came across Addison. I started looking at the meaning of the word, where it derived from and so on. The meaning of it, depending on which site you look at means Adam's son or strong. I don't necessarily like the Adam's son part, but strong I do like! I found that Addison is a form of Edison, which was my Papaw's middle name.

 This is my papaw and I when I was a baby

Here's papaw sitting on the front porch at mom and dad's house

My papaw was an amazing man and when I saw that it was a form of his name, I was sold! Mike liked it as well! We also like Addison because it reminds us of my baby sister as well as my papaw, so we definitely wanted to choose that as a first name. We were a little apprehensive to use Addison Ann because my little sister is Madison Ann and that's just way too close, so instead of choosing Ann as a middle name, she will be named after me and her mimi, with the middle name Dawn. 

Addison's Mimi, my momma

Addison's Aunt Madi, my baby sister

And that's the story of how Addison Dawn got her name. I just love it so much. I call her Addison and Addy and I think both of those are just so cute!