Behind the Name.

A couple of months into my pregnancy I saw a tweet that had the name KENLEY in it. I don't remember who tweeted it, or what the tweet was about but I remember thinking "Ooooh, Kenley." I immediately texted it to Jason and he didn't completely hate it, which meant it was on the list.

I have always liked names that were slightly different. I knew I wanted a name that people could pronounce and people could spell, but I wanted a name that was unique. My early favorites were Avery, Harlow, Harper, Emerson and Kenley. Jason's favorites were Avery and Harper. 

I decided that Avery was getting too popular, a beautiful name, but too popular for me. And Harper, well it just doesn't flow with Fawver. Harper Fawver. It just doesn't sound right, plus, what if our daughter has a hard time saying her "Rs" like so many young kids do? "Hawpew Fawvew" Nope, I couldn't do that to her. 

I was sold on Kenley pretty early on, but Jason wasn't. It took a good 3-4 months before he committed to the name and that was only after I gave him a deadline to bring some new names to the table AND told him he was excused from breastfeeding class. 

I loved that it was uncommon but still easy to pronounce and spell and after looking up the stats on the name, I was even more excited about it. 

Plus, I had only ever heard of two people named Kenley...

Kenley Collins from Project Runway

-and-

Kenley Jansen a pitcher for the Dodgers. 

Our daughter most certainly was NOT named after either of these people (although Kenley Jansen is on Jason's fantasy team....so there's that). 

We just liked the name. 

Not the most heartwarming of tales, but that's how our peanut came to be named. 

Her middle name, Kouris (pronounced core-iss), however does have a lot of meaning. 

It's my mom's maiden name.  

My grandma and grandpa had two daughters, and after they were both married there was no one to carry on the family name. I have always had a special relationship with my Grandpa (my mom's dad) and such a special person deserves to be honored and live on through his future generations, so it was important to me that my baby could do that for him. Thankfully, Jason didn't have a choice agreed and our little angel was named KENLEY KOURIS FAWVER. 

This really had no effect on our decision but an added bonus is that her initials are KK and mine growing up were also KK, it's already become a nickname of hers and I love it! 

So there you have it.