Aveah Dove's Name Etomology

So, this is the story of how Aveah Dove (Avi Dove) got her name. But first, here is a list of all the names she could have been named: Kaya, Aurora/Rory/Ary (mom's favorite), Eden/Edie (dad's favorite), Aria, Charlie...

So, about 6 months pregnant we still didn't have a name for her. We wanted to have about 5 names selected that we both liked and then, once she was born and we saw her little face, we would pick from those names. Well, the problem was we didn't even have one name we both really liked, let alone a list of five names! So, we would ask everyone we knew for name suggestions: friends, family, random waitresses serving us food...  One particular person, Amy Leach, who was our neighbor and also someone Maren worked with, would come up to Maren everyday and place her hand on her belly and say a name, but none of them ever stuck.  Then one afternoon, Amy stopped by our house and she had her 10-year-old daughter, Rachel, with her.  After Amy gave her daily name to Maren's belly, Rachel casually said, Why don't you name her Avi Dove?  This was the first name Rachel had ever suggested.  Michael and I didn't say anything right away, but after they left we looked at each other and said, I sorta like that.  So we wrote it down on the name list.  After several more months, we still liked the name. We had it in "first place" amongst all the other names, but we were keeping it secret because we didn't want other people's reactions to taint our impression of it.  Moreover, we wanted to see her face and see if she looked like an "Avi Dove".  

In the meantime, Maren looked up Avi in her Baby Name book.  Avi was short for Aveah, and we liked that it could be a nickname, while Aveah was more of a full name.  We figured she could pick either to use when she becomes an older child and adult.  Aveah means "the Lord is my father" and is Hewbrew.  It turns out Rachel liked the name "Avi" because she was reading a young adult novel by an author named "Avi" (just one name, no first/last name), and she had a best friend named "Dove".

Well, needless to say, on June 27 when our first girl child was born, we looked at her and agreed that she was a Dove, an Aveah/Avi Dove!

10-year-old Rachel

next-door neighbor to Avi

name-giver of Avi