Dava Daniellewhen i was 18 and childless i swore that if i had twins i'd name them david (dah-vid) and dava. this was all thanks to the cutest little low-voiced 2 year old: lani, who couldn't for the life of her say david and davida. so when i finally did get pregnant (though not with twins) i decided to hold true to my word, and name the soon-to-be-girl dava. (thankfully it was a girl, as i don't know how well dah-vid would've gone over). there was a lot of debate as to how it should be spelt, like daeva or dayva. but finally, thinking ahead into the future (like teaching her how to spell her name) i decided dava would be the best, simplest and easiest bet in this case. the danielle part came about because i wanted "deedee" initials, and danielle was the only other decent "d" name i could think of at the time...or she would've been dava deborah or something like that, and that was really not the vision...
Aileen Christianadava started coming up with all sorts of strange names that we could call the baby. names like limendria or limo (both with the long "i" sound). finally she hit upon a half way decent possibility for a nickname: linny. sam had previously suggested the name aileen, and i thought that would be perfect for linny. and because sam's second name is christian, i wanted her second name to be christiana. so, aileen christiana it was, with every intention of nicknaming her "linny"...but, such was not our luck. in my ninth month of pregnancy dava changed her mind about the baby's name for the millionth time and started telling everyone that the baby would be called liney. though it sounded repulsive at first, much to my shock and horror it actually started growing on people so much so that they actually thought it was cute. and, to this day, sam and i are still trying to break the "liney" spell.
Samantha Mirawe barely even had time to think about the name, as naturally, we thought we still had a couple months to go. it was only after she was already born, and i was sitting in the hospital bed waiting for sam to come back with some dinner that i decided on a name, subject to sam's approval, of course. but he's always wanted one of his kids (preferrably a boy) to have his name...and he got it with this little premature miracle. and so last, but not least (and perhaps, not even really last), we have samantha mira.
