Choosing a Name: Why Luna Marie?

Having an international family has it's complications, as both Coque (Jorge, very difficult to pronounce) and I (Courtney/Corina in Spain) have lived. Finding something that doesn't sound either too Spanish or too American, that can be pronounced and easily written in both languages... that definitely limits our options.

Long before we got pregnant, we had already shared some favorite names.  With girl's names, we had many, but with boys, it was more complicated.

Coque liked Julia or Luna, and I liked Amaia, Leire, Ariadna, Yaiza—all a bit complex in English.

For boys, I had always teased that I loved the name "Lirio" which means "lily" in Spanish, but there was a strong veto against that, not only from Coque, but from almost anyone we mentioned it to. 😂 I had a strong feeling that baby was a boy, so we spent most of our time debating boy names: Etienne, Julian, Leo, Luca, Río, or River.

We played with sets of names, and since we wanted the name to have some kind of meaning, were drawn to Luna (which means moon) and Río (or River). We put both these names to the pronunciation test with our parents, and Luna was decidedly easier. Guess we may have to work on Río later. 🙃

When they confirmed that we were expecting a girl, we came back to Luna (thank goodness), and I suggested that adding a second name might help it sound more complete to me. Then I thought of my mom's middle name: Marie, which is closely related to "Mar" which means "the sea" in Spanish, and it felt perfect.

In Spanish, adding "ita" or "ito" to a word is a way of showing endearment, a little like -y in English. So we have already taken to calling our Luna "Lunita" which brings back memories of my godmother, Nita, and makes me love the name even more.

Luna's Easter egg (made by our niece, Charlie, and a pacifier holder from Coque's coworkers.