What's In A Name?

I have a post written for all our children as to why we picked the names that we did for them. To keep things fair, here is Lexie's :)

Alexandra Grace

When we found out we were expecting baby number four, we would joke about the baby being a girl. However, almost everyone in our little family, minus Lottie, just knew it'd be a boy. We already had a boy name picked that we loved, so we didn't need a conversation. However, we had no clue what we would name a girl.

Anytime I would bring up girl names, Phil would play along for while, but ask we not get serious until we found out the gender. Well, joke was on us because it's girl! While I was sad we couldn't use the name Nathan, (because we are SO donedonedonedone), we are so excited to meet our baby girl in August.

With our girls, we would name them after both sides of the family. Since we've already did that once, then twice, we covered all our family. This meant, we just needed to find a full name
1) we both agreed on,
2) flowed well with our last name,
3) went with the other three names of the older children, and
4) that wasn't already used, or spoken for in our large family.

I honestly pushed for Amelia Cate for a while, but Phil just didn't seem to really like it. I made a list, (surprise surprise), about three separate times of names that I like. I even included names I loved that I knew in my heart of hearts that Phil would NEVER agree to! Then we would narrow it down from there together. It was then my job to come up with middle names. I usually take into consideration syllable count, monograms & initials, (because there is a difference), and flow of the name.

Alexandra - Defender of Mankind {via}
We really love tradition names with traditional spellings. We also love full names that can be shortened. We decided with Jillian that we would have a nickname for them as a family, but they were free to use whatever form of their name they choose. In fact, Jillian has already decided she wants to be Jill, not Jillian, for Kindergarten. Works for us!
I loved that there were many names to work with with Alexandra. Alex, Lexie, Lex, Sasha, Andy, Annie, to name a few. We decided to go with Lexie for now within our family. However she wants her name later, we will go with that, even if she'll always be Lexie to us.
I also love that it means "defender of mankind." I sincerely pray that she, as well as all of our children, find it their joy to fight for what is right. During these times, I feel it is very important for women to make sure their voices are heard for many different issues. Raising multiple daughters will definitely help keep that goal in sight for most of my adult life.

Grace - God's Favor; A Virtue {via}
I really debated using this name. While beautiful, Grace seems to be a filler middle name for the last several years. I didn't want Lexie to think we got lazy!
However, not only is Grace a beautiful name, it is a beautiful gift, just like Lexie is to us. Plus, with a 4th baby in the house, (and having 2 under 2), we need a TON of grace in our home. So when we bring home our Grace, we pray grace follows us in.

And that is why Lexie has the name Alexandra Grace. We can't wait to meet her face to face, and add her to our family :)