We've been asked by several friends about how Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled... I mean how we picked the name Piper. We actually had a really difficult time deciding on the PERFECT name for our new little girl.
We found the name Piper in a catalog actually. It was this catalog selling trendy clothes and they named all the items after girls' names. Some of the names were common but they also had some unusual names. I was flipping through the catalog a few days after we'd found out we would be having a girl, and so I started reading off the names in the catalog to Heath. When I read, "Piper" we were both sort of struck and loved that name. Since then we'd been compiling and debating about a bunch of different names... at one point we had a list of 18 girl's names we liked (see below) and were having such a hard time narrowing it down.
The Original 18 Names: Macy, Piper, Mable, Kennedi, Fiona, Coco, Millie, Norah, Poppie, Scout, Phoebe, Nelle, Chanel, Bella, Mara, Layla, Tabitha, Presley
We were asking family and friends for feedback and looking through name books almost obsessively. We also didn't want the name to be too popular so we would check the "ranking" of various names on the Baby Name Wizard (a pretty cool site to play around with if you have some time) as we pared down our list.
A couple of weeks before the baby was born we still couldn't figure out which of the seven names still on the list (Piper, Mable, Millie, Kennedi, Norah, Tabitha, Fiona) was the "one." One Sunday afternoon we spent over an hour with my sisters Jenny and Chrisie picking names out of a hat to see which one came up the most often (Millie won by a long shot).
A few days before the baby arrived, we narrowed the list of seven. Heath wasn't all that fond of Fiona anymore and everyone kept saying it reminded them of "Shrek," which we weren't sure we liked -- so that name was cut. Norah was a real front runner with me, but then we found out that my cousin had named his new baby girl Nora so off the list it went. The 2006 top 100 names were posted online and we were sad to see that Kennedy was in the top 100 -- although we were spelling it with an "I" instead of "Y" we still thought it was too close so it got the axe. I was also getting worried that since "Piper" seemed to be on an upward trend that it could very well break into the top 100 in the next couple of years so I convinced Heath to remove it from the list. That left Mable, Millie and Tabitha -- all names that I had claimed as favorites, and I could tell Heath was a bit bummed. Piper had been his favorite name all along so back onto the list it went. Then Heath revealed that he really disliked my long-time favorite, Mable. I agreed that I could be happy with Millie over Mable and we both LOVED Millie -- so Mable got exed.
So when we went into the hospital we'd finally narrowed it down to 3 names: Tabitha, Piper and Millie.
In the operating room when I first saw Piper's red hair I knew that Tabitha wouldn't fit. So then it was between Millie and Piper. She was born Tuesday and it took us until Thursday to finally agree on Piper. We'd already selected Jean as a middle name either way -- so our beautiful little Baby Girl Hirschi No. 2, became Piper Jean Hirschi.
