Lois Nalani: How She Got Her Name

You ready for this? It's a long story. :) We packed in all the meaning we could into her little name. Growing up, my mom always told me what my name meant, which always gave it special significance to me. I loved knowing that I was named my name for a purpose. We wanted to give that same significance to Lois in naming her.

Lois
First, pronunciation. It's not Louis, it's not Louise. It's Lois. Like Lois Lane from Superman. Except not Lois Lane. We did not name her after a superhero's girlfriend. :) But since I know there will be issues with people not knowing how to say it (there already have been)...that's how I gotta explain it. :)
Literally, the meaning is "battle maiden" or "superior" (or a number of variants on that, depending on where you look). Personally, I like the battle maiden thing--it makes it more clear why she was so active in my belly. :)


But the reason we chose to name her Lois is because both my grandmothers' names were Lois. I never knew either of my grandmothers, but when they both had the same name...I mean, how cool is that? And I think it's really awesome to be able to name her after two grandmothers instead of just one. I'm hoping it will also spark some interest for her in learning about her great-grandmas.
David also has a connection to the name Lois. His high school choir teacher, who was a very special lady to him, is also Lois. She never had the opportunity to have children of her own, so we wanted to honor her dedication to young people and just how wonderful a person she is by having our daughter share her name. Funny enough, we found out after our Lois was born that she and David's choir teacher share a birthday, January 13.

Nalani

May as well tell you how to pronounce this one too. It's Nuh-lah-knee. It's Hawaiian for "of heaven."
My mom and her family grew up in Hawaii, and she and her sisters have Hawaiian middle names. Mom continued the tradition with my middle name, Mailani (my-lah-knee), and we wanted to continue it even further with Lois's middle name. We chose Nalani because it's my Aunt Cathy's middle name. She also wasn't able to have children of her own, and she has so many admirable qualities that both David and I want our Lois Nalani to also have. She's generous, compassionate, loving, and has never-failing faith in the Lord.