The Number Two Most Asked Question Right Now

When you dis­cov­er you’re hav­ing a child, the first thing that every­one asks is “do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?” I know we do. Pro­vid­ed you have an answer to that ques­tion, oth­er than “we’ve decid­ed to not know the sex of the child,” the next ques­tion is always “do you have a named picked out?” (Note, if you aren’t going to deter­mine the sex, our sec­ond ques­tion to you will be “why the hell not?”)

So it has been ever since we found out we were going to have a lit­tle girl. We’ve gone through at least two of those gigan­tic Baby Names books and Angela has said aloud prac­ti­cal­ly every name in them. We kept com­ing back to one name that real­ly sound­ed nice to the both of us. We could­n’t say exact­ly why; it just was one we both liked. It became the default name we would use as code between us instead of ‘baby.’ It sound­ed famil­iar, though not com­mon (nei­ther of us have ever known any­one with this name). It seems, to us, both fem­i­nine and strong. We’ve even got­ten to the point of short­en­ing it to first syl­la­ble, which is an accept­able nick­name for us.

I won’t lie to you and say it’s got­ten uni­ver­sal accep­tance, but I sup­pose more pos­i­tive than neg­a­tive. At least those who did­n’t care for it (at first; they’ll get over it once they see how cute she’s gonna be) liked her mid­dle name. None-the-less, we feel like it’s a good name and it’s the one we real­ized we liked. A lot. So, with­out any­more stalling, get used to…

Ains­ley Claire Coleman

I say ‘get used to’ because she’ll be your pres­i­dent some­day. Whether that is before or after she stops glob­al warm­ing and dis­cov­ers a cure for most forms of can­cer is entire­ly up to her. No pres­sure, Ainse.

I wish I had a bet­ter answer to the third most asked ques­tion (“oh, where did that name come from?”) than ‘a char­ac­ter on a tele­vi­sion show we both loved,’ but there’s no sense in lying to any­one. Whether or not you liked that char­ac­ter (I know, a lik­able Repub­li­can lawyer. Who knew such peo­ple exist­ed?) or Emi­ly Proc­tor, the actress who played her, does not mat­ter. You will for­get them all togeth­er as soon as our lit­tle Ains­ley is born.

Oh, the last name was Ange­la’s deci­sion, just like it was always going to be as far as I was con­cerned. While I’m proud enough of my last name, I’m far more con­cerned with pass­ing on oth­er things to her.

Last­ly, I hope you’ll all keep up with her at her new web­site: AinsleyColeman.com

Published
Categorized as Baby

By Jason Coleman

Structural engineer and technical content manager Bentley Systems by day. Geeky father and husband all the rest of time.

3 comments

  1. i love it! it’s so funny…not her name…but as i read her name, i thought “oh! like the char­ac­ter from west wing! she’s great!” (aaron and i are watch­ing all the sea­sons over again right now…because we don’t have cable that’s why!) any­way, it’s beau­ti­ful. i will vote for her when she runs for president.

  2. Haha. You’ve already cre­at­ed a web­site for her. I’m impressed.

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