What's in a name?

Lilia updates and pictures to come soon, but I'd like to start something new with the blog. I'm going to try and do more frequent updates than the typical once a month huge post. It's so much easier to do smaller posts (and more motivating). I think I'll also be able to fit in more Spanish culture, what's going on with me and Quique (besides ALL Lilia), and just give you a better look into our lives here. It's a win-win situation. And now onto the post.

Even though Lilia is now almost 17 months old I thought I'd do a quick break down of her name for anyone who's interested.

Lilia Helena Mallen Latty

Lilia- Quique and I took forever to decide on a name for Lilia. Night after night we would sit down, read through books, look on the Internet, and just generally discuss what we thought would be a good name. Some of the candidates: Maria Helena, Kylie, Eva, Julia, Blanca, Katie... yeah. All over the place. Do you know how hard it is to come up with a name that sounds good in both English and Spanish and that your relatives on both the Spanish and American side can pronounce? Not many. Quique was a fan of the cute little girl names (Kylie, Katie) and I was a fan of the more elegant Spanish names (Eva, Blanca). I kept pushing the name Lily (although not an elegant Spanish name I suppose), but Quique wasn't sold on it and it sounds really silly with a Spanish accent (Leelee). So I said, "What about Lilia?" It's simple, pretty, and I could call her Lily for short. And so a name was born...

Helena- My grandmother on my mother's side was Helena (Helen for short) and both Quique and I loved the name. For a long time we were convinced Lilia was going to be called Maria Helena. Quique even wanted to call her Helena Nicole at one point to which I laughed because I have two cousins named Helena and Nicole who are sisters. I told him if we named her Helena Nicole we would be accused of a serious lack of creativity. We also love the name because Elena (no h) is a very common name in Spanish and if she wanted to sound less foreign (because Lilia is not a Spanish name) she could just go by Elena.

Mallen Latty- This is where it gets fun. In Spain everybody has two last names. Children's first last name is the father's first last name and their second last name is their mother's first last name. haha confusing right? For example, Quique is: Enrique Mallen Bosler and I am Christina Latty therefore Lilia's last name is Mallen Latty. Mallen has an accent on the e and sounds like my-en.

There you have it. Lilia Helena Mallen Latty. :)