Paige Courtney Carr

As I've heard my mom tell a few people lately... "We went to Lake Tahoe with Courtney and came home with Paige."

That's right. We changed our daughter's name at 15 months old.

The day before I gave birth to our third child, we had a name in mind but weren't 100% positive about it. So that night we came up with the name Courtney. I've always loved the name Courtney. My sister's name is Courtney. I remember Chris and I talking when we were first married about our future babies names and wishing we could use the name Courtney but felt we couldn't because it's my sister's name. As we sat there trying hard to come up with the right name, we thought "why not?" Yes, it's my sister's name, but how cool for our little girl to be named after her aunt who is such a wonderful person? We loved it and were excited about it.

It felt a little weird calling her Courtney right after she was born, but that seemed normal and was even expected since it was different to be naming her after my sister (who is alive and well). The problem is, the weirdness never went away for both me or Chris. But we never really talked about it. As she got older, we found ourselves calling her nicknames to avoid calling her Courtney just to avoid the weirdness. But at this point, actually changing her name never even crossed my mind.

We went to Lake Tahoe in the middle of July. The baby was 15 months old. While Chris and I were driving back to our cabin after hiking Eagle Lake with the family, her name came up. We talked about how we both felt like it was still awkward calling her Courtney. We were bummed about it feeling awkward and those feelings were totally unexpected by both of us. We started feeling like we wanted our little girl to have a name all her own. Her own identity. We decided on that drive to change her name. I don't know how the name "Paige" came up but it did and we both loved it...instantly. We looked at her sitting in the back of the car and she looked like a "Paige". We have a hard time agreeing on names for our kids so when one comes up that we agree on, it's easy to know it is right.  It was funny to notice when we got back to the cabin that day, we noticed a sign on the rental cabin that said "The Page Family". Funny, huh?

We didn't want to get rid of the name Courtney though. It was her name for the first 15 months of her life. A name that I have always loved. The name of my sister who was one of my best friends growing up. So it was easy to decide to make Courtney her middle name.

We told Mason and Annie first about the name change in Lake Tahoe. Mason was thrilled. He had a classmate at school named Paige and loved the name. Annie on the other hand was upset about it. She did not want to change her name to Paige. When we asked her why, with her head bowed and a huge frown on her face, she said "Because I want to name her Annie". We smiled and told her that when she has kids in the future, she gets to name them what ever she wants. That made her happy again.  And then she told us she would name her daughter Elsa and her son Dinosaur. You go girl.

It took a couple weeks for us all to really get used to it. Now one month later, we rarely accidentally call her Courtney anymore and she knows her name is Paige.

Since Courtney is her middle name, for all I know, she may decide to go by Courtney some day. And I would be 100% okay with that. I love both names.

Paige Courtney Carr.