Week 25

week 24

What's in a Name?

Assuming the ultrasound prediction is correct (and we gather that it isn't always), the coming child's name will be: Linnaea Adoracion Kling. 

Adoracion is her grandmother -- Ivy's mom. We want to raise her to know and understand both sides of her ancestry. Ivy is going to ensure that she will be bilingual in English and Tagalog (and I look forward to learning right along with our daughter), and we'd like to find a way for her to get some extended time in the Philippines during her formative years.

Naming her after her Lola Dory seemed a great way to honor that. 

Lola Dory (Adoracion Ver Yap)

And I'm honored to have a wonderful mother-in-law, so I'm very pleased with her middle name.

Linnaea has two sources. She's indirectly named for Carl Linnaeus, known as the 'father of taxonomy' for developing a system to name and classify organisms. More directly, she is named for my favorite wildflower, called Twinflower, which is found on the forest floor here in the pacific northwest. The scientific name is Linnaea borealis. 

Twin flower growing at Lake Padden in Bellingham

As the name 'borealis' suggests, twinflower occurs all along the northern tip of the northern hemisphere. It was supposedly one of Linnaeus' favorite plants, and a friend of his gave it its genus name Linnaea in honor of him. It has generally been placed in the honeysuckle plant family, but some taxonomists are now placing it in its own family: Linneaceae.

We're placing it in the Kling/Yap family.

23 weeks