Walking With You - Naming Our Babies

Walking With You was created to help support those who have lost a child. Together we share our stories, helpful information, scriptures, encouraging words, prayer requests, and more. Thank you to those of you who have joined us for the past few weeks...for courageously sharing your stories. If you haven't joined us yet, and would like to, you are more than welcome.

This week, we are sharing how we chose the names for our babies and any special meaning behind them.

My husband and I have always had problems coming up with baby names. He's from Syria, and it's no secret that he's been brought up in an antisemitic environment - though I have to say he's come a long way from his roots in his 15 years here. And the bulk of American names are based in the Jewish faith. Andrew was actually going to be Nathan, until someone in Yasar's family enlightened him on that name's origins.

When we first found out we were expecting, we started tossing around different names. Our first round was Laurel Edith and Oliver Philip, respectively. That lasted a few months, then, right before we found out that we had the female version cooking in the oven.

And then we came up with Leila. Leila (pronounced Lay-la) is of Persian origin, meaning "dark beauty". Since my daughter was destined to have dark brown hair, and a 50/50 shot at having my brown eyes, we thought it would be the perfect, beautiful name for her.

Her middle name, Mae, was meant to honor both my mother (middle name May) and grandmother (Edith May, where we thought to transfer the "e" into Mae). Viola! The perfect name for our little girl. Leila Mae.

As a side note, a few weeks after we lost her, my husband asked me if we could use the name again. We both loved it so much! I hate to say this, but I actually, for about a minute, considered saving that name - just in case. But no, it belonged to Leila, and it will never be used again.

Leila Mae Wasouf. A beautiful name for a beautiful soul.