My husband and I are going to be first time grandparents. My stepdaughter is due in July on my 60^th birthday (the timing of the due date is fodder for another blog).

Obviously, my family is very excited and almost all of our recent conversations revolve around Danielle’s pregnancy. This week, the topic was names and what do our names mean.

My parents believed that you honor relatives who have passed when naming your children. Their belief was that you give the children the same name as the deceased person in Hebrew. In English, however, they did not believe that you use the same names as the deceased person. They believed that using the same name in English would be bad luck for the child. For the English names they believed that you use the same first letter of the name for the deceased person.

For instance, I am named for my grandmothers, both of whom died before I was born. Their first names in English were Rose and Lena. I share their Hebrew names of Rochkel and Lea. My English names use their first letters, Rona Lee. I followed my parents’ tradition when I named my daughters, Calli Morgan (named for Cecilia and Meyer) and Sydney Reade (named for Sophie and Rae). They also share their namesake’s Hebrew names.

What does your name mean?