A Ros(alie) by Any Other Name

What's in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet;

- William Shakespeare from Romeo & Juliet

A fair number of folks have asked us how we chose the name Rosalie.

To be honest, there is (or was) no great story behind it. Adam and I individually brainstormed names we liked and wrote our favorites on a whiteboard.

Sample of Adam's top names

• Clara
• Maria
• Catherine
• Theresa

Sample of my top names

• Cecilia 
• Maya 
• Rosalie (My twin sister, Ren, suggested this name to me and I really liked it. I also liked Rosie)
• Everly 

Adam wanted to name her after someone inspirational and while I liked that idea as well, I also just wanted a name that sounded nice and could be shortened to a cute nickname. Clearly, I have my priorities. :) So while I liked Clara, Adam's top choice, it didn't meet my, could be shortened to a cute nickname requirement.

I was thinking about the name a lot more than Adam, as evidenced by the many emails I sent him of possible names and the more I thought about it, the more I really loved Rosalie. Now I only had to make the case to Adam for why it was inspirational. That's when I remembered Adam's paternal grandmother's name was Roz. I asked him if her full name was Rosalie but he thought it was Roslyn since they called her Grandma Roz as opposed to Grandma Rose. Since Rosalie was fairly close to Roslyn and we liked the way the name sounds, we agreed on Rosalie.

The last name is a whole other conversation that I won't get into here, but after much discussion which included creating a new last name of Reynburn, we settled on Rosalie Reyna Bernstein. It sounds better than Rosalie Bernstein Reyna and is more practical than Rosalie Reyna-Bernstein. So her middle name is Reyna and her last name is Bernstein.

As for nicknames, we have a bunch that we call her including:

• Rosie
• Rosa-pose
• Rosa-roo
• Roo
• Rosie Posie
• Rosa-lee-lee
• Rose-my-pose

It's also a great name to rhyme with, which is key when you're making up words to songs in the middle of the night. For example this is something I made up yesterday - sung to the tune of Barney's "I love you song."

I love you

You love me

You're our sweet little Rosalie

With a great big hug

And a kiss from me to you

You-oo are our little Roo.

Nice boring name story you say? Well...come to find out, there is some excitement to it. A week or so after Rosalie was born, her Granny Laura and Grandpa Joel were in town. Check out the photos of them with Rosalie below.

Rosalie, Joel, Laura and Heart Dog

While they were here, we had Aunt Louise (Joel's sister) and cousin Brent over for dinner. During dinner, Aunt Louise told us that her mom's full name was Rosalie. Joel was in disbelief. All along, he also thought it was Roslyn. Aunt Louise didn't realize it either until she saw her mom's birth certificate. Because Joel couldn't believe it until he saw it, he asked her to send him a photocopy of it. And low and behold - her name was Rosalie! Rosalie Sheinberg. Check it out below:

Copy of Grandma Rosalie's birth certificate

I love how nice the cursive handwriting is on this birth certificate. It's also cool to see her parents names (Louis and Lilly) and their professions. Louis was a tailor and they were both from Russia. Pretty neat.

So even though we could have named Rosalie any other name and we would love her all the same, the fact that she is actually named after her great-grandma Roz, even if it was by accident, makes it all the sweeter.

p.s. Rosalie had a great one month check up last week. She is now 7 pounds 10.4 ounces! We also don't have to wake her up for feedings any more. So all is well in the Reyna Bernstein household. Here's a recent photo of her: