Aven Rhyse Van Gelder

Aven {radiant} Rhyse {alternate spelling for Reese meaning running or enthusiastic}

A while back I wrote a blog about our sweet baby girl's name, but since then, it changed slightly.  So after you read that post, come back here as I pick up telling Aven where we left off!

Since your dad and I couldn't agree on our first choices {mine being Lyndan and his being either Jenson or Henson}, I mentioned my second choice, Reese {which seemed appropriate since I ran most of my pregnancy with you and we are enthusiastic about having you in our family}, and he said he loved it. So there it was...you were named...ALMOST!

Since Emrie's middle name is significant, I wanted to make sure you had a significant middle name too...but we didn't like any of the names left from our families, so we were stuck again. For several weeks I worried about this issue, we even tossed around new first names and using Reese as a middle name, but I had already started calling you Reese and it seemed weird to change your first name now because that is who I saw you as.

After we had talked about names to exhaustion on vacation, I came home and made a list. As we were laying in bed one night I told your dad I was going to read him my list and he could say yes or no. We had gone through almost the entire list and surprisingly had a few left on there.

Out of the blue, your dad said, "you haven't said anything close to this name but what about Aven?" {One of the names I said was Finley which made him think of Ohio and he said it made him think of places we had lived and he mistakenly thought there was an Avian or something like that near us in Ohio, which there wasn't, but that is how he thought of Aven}.

Aven! That was it. That was the middle name I had been waiting for. I loved it! The best part was that when I looked it up, it means radiant, which made me love it even more.

Reese Aven was going to be your name.  We called you that for about a month, but something just didn't quite seem right to me.  I couldn't shake the feeling that I liked the name Reese but LOVED the name Aven.  So I talked to your dad about it and he said I could pick which order the names went in. 

But I was still having trouble deciding.  So I did something I never thought I would do, I talked to two close friends and told them both names and asked their opinions.  They both affirmed what I already suspected, Aven Reese it had to be!

I came home and told your dad that I wanted you to be Aven Reese and he whole heartedly agreed.  Aven was unique and feminine, but sounded strong too. The problem became, we couldn't decide on a spelling.

Originally I wanted to spell it Avyn just to be even more different, but I also like Reese spelled Rhyse but didn't want both names to have a Y in them.  Two things made the decision easy.  Your dad said Aven needed to be spelled with an E because the Y looked too childish and Emrie has a Y in her middle name and both our boy middle names also have Y's in them so I figured it could be a family theme {if you ever have brothers}.

Your dad and I literally decided the final spelling for Rhyse over text message while I was in labor.  He was in the side room watching a movie while I was sort of napping after the epidural and we started the discussion.  He was concerned that people wouldn't say Rhys right so we should spell it like the candy. But, I thought Rhyse looked pretty and even though phonetically it should be spelled without the E on the end, your dad and I thought it looked more complete with it and since it is your middle name, dad didn't mind how we spelled it as much.

That is the long, over thought journey to how you became Aven Rhyse Van Gelder!  We think it is a beautiful name and it suits you perfectly!