Naming Quinn

"Oh come all without, come all within
You'll not see nothing like the mighty Quinn
Come all without, come all within
You'll not see nothing like the mighty Quinn."
--- From "The Mighty Quinn" by Bob Dylan

Quinn went without a name for a full 24 hours. It's hard naming a baby when you aren't for sure whether you are naming a boy or a girl. We did some serious debate about boy's names (we were really far apart on these), and had finally settled on a boy first name that we both loved, and had several middle names that we were bouncing around.

And, we had an arsenal of girl names that we both loved. Landon had always preferred Caroline, and I really liked it, too. I really preferred Quinn, and Landon also thought that was a good name. And, just a few hours before Quinn was born, the name Piper came up, and we both called that one our wild card. We decided that we would need to meet our baby before saying for sure.

And then we met Quinn. We might have been a little thrown off at first. She looked so much like Cora when she was first born, that at first it was hard to identify her personality. We passed her back and forth. We named different names to see her reaction. We listed all of our names (included some not in our top 3) on the white board of the hospital room. We took a couple of good naps. I took a long bath. We weighed the pros and cons of each name. Finally, we decided we needed a lifeline, so we decided to take a poll AND ask some friends. Outside of our hospital room, we posted a sheet asking the hospital staff and visitors to mark which name they preferred. We also each picked 6 friends (Landon cheated and sent his text to many more) asking for their preference. And, Landon found a website called Namipedia that is FULL of awesome info.

Something funny happened. With our friends, Caroline won by a landslide. At the hospital, Piper came out of the gate really strong, and when nurses came in and they told us why, it was that Caroline seemed really overused to them (something we wanted to avoid). Namipedia's info had Cora, Quinn, and Caroline all ranked equally in several qualities ("A person with this name sounds smart..."; "A person with this name sounds professional..."; "A person with this name sounds elegant..."), both Quinn and Caroline were kind of similar in general popularity (Quinn is less popular than Caroline) and both were paired with sibling names similar to Cora, like Elanore. Namipedia also has a regional ranking (the data person in me LOVES this website), and it was clear that Caroline is a name of the southeast whereas Quinn doesn't have a regional association.

When the poles started coming in, I was pretty disappointed that Quinn didn't do better (which is telling), and I think Landon felt pretty swayed by the news from the nurses that they didn't vote for Caroline based on how many Caroline's that they knew. And, a lot of our friends reported that while they liked Piper, they were worried that Piper didn't fit in a boardroom (and what if our little girl eventually wants to dominate a boardroom?). Plus, a certain personality might have earned her the name Piper, but honestly, she didn't act very Pipey! Quinn it was.

We originally were choosing meaningful middle names, but in all honesty, neither of us liked the cadence of either of the middle names with Quinn and we only liked them for their meaning. Landon has always loved Elise, and Elise was in the front running of names for both Quinn and Cora (and, it helps that my friend from work Amy has a delightful 8 year old named Elise, and we always like our interactions with her; that is the only Elise that we think we know). Landon declared that Elise would be Quinn's middle name, and I agreed.

We did not give any thought to the lyrics of Dylan's song when we were naming Quinn (I was reminded of it from Namipedia AFTER Quinn was already named, and the only part of the song I recognized is the chorus. Landon NEVER recognizes lyrics, so he can't remember it).

From Wikipedia: "The subject of the song is the arrival of the mighty Quinn (an Eskimo), who changes despair into joy and chaos into rest, and attracts attention from the animals. The metaphorical lyrics have prompted suggestions that Quinn is a village elder."

So in the song Quinn is a boy, and an eskimo, and maybe even a village elder.
But... so far, Quinn fits the personality of Dylan's Quinn.
She's calming.
She's laidback.
We can't believe that she's only been with us for 5 days.
And I know that it is too early for her to smile, but she frequently gives us the sweetest little sleepy grin.
She might just be a peacemaker.