She Has a Name

Early in this pregnancy I asked the Lord if he would show me whether our baby is a boy or a girl. Over the course of the month that followed I had four dreams that we are having a girl. We knew that this was a clear answer to my prayer, and we are so grateful to God for his willingness to respond in that way.

We found it difficult during each of our previous pregnancies to get very excited about any particular girl name, but since we had a boy both times, we never had to press the issue to an actual decision. Of course, this time we are having a girl, and we are faced with the need to make a decision.

I searched through the Bible, flipped through numerous baby books, and exhausted baby name websites. But even weeks after building a long list from these resources, we were unable to settle on any one name. We've wanted to give our daughter a name that is strong, feminine, and graceful, but not overbearing. Certainly there were names on our list that fit the bill, but we simply were not able to decide and commit to one.

Well, several nights ago we did commit - having found her name in one of the most unlikely places... a Pottery Barn catalog! Strange, I know. I've always thought they had great names in that magazine, but when I picked it up in bed that night I really hadn't considered it would be a source of inspiration for naming our daughter.

As soon as I saw the name, I asked Andy what he thought and we both fell in love with it. Minutes later we went to bed, but I woke up at 2am needing to know exactly what this name we loved so much was all about. We had never even heard of it before.

As it turns out, this name holds so much more meaning than we could have guessed. At first we just loved the name at face value, but now that we have done some research we love it all the more. We continue to find it so much like God to have placed the name before our eyes when we least expected it, when we weren't even really searching for names.

It is a combination of Anna and Belle. Anna is a Hebrew name meaning 'Grace' and 'Favor'. Belle means 'Beautiful'. Bell is also a nickname for Isabel, which is Hebrew for 'God's promise'. But when the two names are combined it most likely is a variant of the name 'Amabel' which means 'lovable' - also the meaning of 'Amy'!

On top of that, my mother's name is JoAnna, and my great-grandmother's maiden name is Bell. I have always wanted to use Jane as the middle name, which is my grandmother's middle name and means 'God's grace'.

This little girl's name holds such lovely meaning and is permeated with a wonderful heritage of four generations of women that have gone before her. It's just perfect: