What's in a name?

Violette's blessing dress made by my mom

So, "Violette?", you ask yourself? "What was Amelia thinking?" you say to your spouse? Well, I'll tell you.  Justin has two grandmothers, one named Viola(Vai-O-la) and another named Violet.  I always had Violet on my baby name list and it seemed to be at the top, but something just wasn't right. I didn't like any of my other names as much, but I didn't love just plain ol' Violet so I looked up the variations and when I read Violette, it just stuck and it was the one.  I briefly considered Violetta, the Italian version, but for some reason I don't like names ending in an -uh sound because it makes our names sound like full sentences like Bea's middle name, Isabella which is gaggingly overused.  I could make a sentence out of it.  "Isabella Hohl" changes to, "Is a bell a whole?" There are so many names that we couldn't use because they either created bad concepts or other full sentences like my personal favorite, Phillipa, which is a name I would have  totally used.  I LOVE that name, but put it all together and it says, "fill up a hole".  There is no way.  A, P, and I names are out of the picture and then I have to be careful of names ending in -es -is or -as for obvious reasons.  Since I like unusual names, you'd be surprised at how many names I couldn't use that I would have considered. 

Violette starting to smile.  She looks just like Henry to us!

I like my concept names like Jackson Hole, Whole Clementine, Be Whole and now Vivi Whole which also means "Live Whole" in Italian.  I'm trying to embrace our last name and turn it into something interesting instead of naming my kids really boring, normal names to downplay it.  All our kids have ties to ancestors, but have an international twist.  Even Clementine is French.  Henry doesn't respond to his name anymore, so I call him Enrico most of the time.  So there you have it, we have two Italian and two French babies.  Would you expect anything less from me?