One Pink Balloon: Naming Bean

I've been playing a game on Facebook and posting clues to Bean's name. For the last month, I have been posting a clue for either her first or middle name. My plan was to reveal her name in our maternity pictures, like we did with Kenley. It's been fun watching people squirm with anticipation. Some came up with some pretty weird guesses too!

So, Bean's name is....

Here's how her name connects to the clues:

1. Her middle name is found in children's literature.
While, technically, the book Madeline is pronounced Made-LINE, Bean's middle name will be pronounced Made-lynn.

2. Her first name can be associated with the numbers 40, 115, 126, and 11.
-The New Zealand Piper is a fish that can grow to be 40 cm long.
-Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper is a NASA astronaut who was a mission specialist on STS 115 and 126
-And, obviously...11 pipers piping!

3. Her first name has connections to Pink Floyd and ABBA
Piper at the Gates of Dawn was Pink Floyd's debut album and "The Piper" is a song from ABBA's Super Trouper album.

4. In a Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon like thread, her first name connects first to a character in The Hunger Games and then to a company with ties in Florida.
Seneca Crane is the first gamemaker in The Hunger Games. The Piper Seneca is a lightweight aircraft designed and built by Piper Aircraft, which has a facility in Vero Beach Florida.

5. Although not named after anyone, her middle name is related to a character in the bible. Madeline actually means, "Woman of Magdala", which connects to Mary Magdalene.

6. If you took both of her names and laid them across a scrabble board horizontally, going across the center star, you would earn 60 points.
This one needs a picture to explain:

If only I'd used the French spelling, I could have gotten triple word score!

7. Bean's names have the same amount of syllables as her sister's. This one is easy. Piper Madeline and Kenley Evelyn. Boom! Phonics!

Naming Bean was no easy task. When we named Kenley, we went through so many names that just weren't unique enough - or too unique. I threw out so many, and I didn't want to resort to my "trash" pile to name Bean. If they weren't good enough for Kenley, they weren't good enough for Bean. Every name I came across just didn't fit her quite right. One day, Mike tossed around the name "Piper". While I liked it, I thought at first it would be better as a middle name. However, whenever I found another name I kind of liked, Piper sounded better as the first. With a quirky name as a first name, I wanted a classic name as a middle...like with Kenley. Long story short, we decided our Bean would be Piper Madeline.

Here are a few other beautiful images from our photo shoot, courtesy of our wonderful photographer friend Jeanee James: