The story behind Leia’s name.

Leia. I get a lot of questions on her name…”Why Leia?”

Guess it is apt that I dedicate a blog post on why we chose the name. After having 2 boys with names starting with “J” (Jerry & Jerome), I guess everyone expects the baby’s name to start with a “J” like my boys. Maybe something like a Jasmine, Jolene, Jacqueline, Jerlyn or something. Which reminds me, I never really documented the reason why my boys’ names started with “J”.

So, before I unravel the reason behind the name Leia… maybe I should share how we got started with names starting with a “J”. I shared this many times in real life (because too funny), but never on the blog. It all started as a joke actually when we were looking for names for Jerry. We didn’t quite know what names to choose, and one day, the following conversation happened.

Der: Hmmm, I want the baby name to start with J.
Me: Oh, any reason why?
D: Because people with the initials J.C are all famous and successful people.. like Jacky Cheung (der’s favourite singer), Jay Chou, Jolin Cai, Jimmy Choo…
M: Right…. that’s just random.
D: Really! It’s true, I can quote so many examples!
M: Ya, ya (*roll eyes*), there is Jesus Christ too!
(I had to admit, I thought it was quite funny then for him to come up with this nonsense)

But then, I didn’t really have a preference back then and didn’t mind any alphabets for the names to start with so I played along and granted his preference of the initials J.C. We eventually picked Jerry for our first born after going through books of names and scouring the internet for a name we both liked. It was mainly because (1) it was a proper english name (and with no strange spellings please) (2) it has a proper meaning (3) it isn’t common or going to be common amongst his peers. These were my guiding principles for our kids’ names and when Jerome came along… we just had to agree on a name we both could accept, and Jerome was it.

While brainstorming for our first born before we knew the gender, we also had the name “Jewel” in our shortlist for a baby girl, to signify someone precious. Somehow, 7 years down.. I didn’t think it was such a good idea anymore. The name just didn’t appeal to me anymore. Maybe it is an age thing, I almost thought it sounded quite lame to a certain extent (no offence to anyone named Jewel!) and decided that I needed to find another name.

And I searched and searched, and I couldn’t find anything that could satisfy my guiding principles and something that I liked with J. I eventually asked the husband if he was ok if we deviated from “J” for the baby’s name. He was kind of reluctant but agreed that he couldn’t think of a better name starting with J either. I also toyed with the name “Cherise” for a while but a few months down, the name lost the appeal too. But Leia was always there, partly inspired by the Princess Leia in Star Wars because I always referred to Leia when she was in my tummy as my princess (to der). The gender was kept a secret from many so we didn’t share our choices of names with anymore as well. When asked, my reply is always “it’s a secret!”. I wanted the name to connote “princess” somewhat because she was going to be my last baby definitely and being the youngest in the family, she’s definitely going to be daddy’s princess. Somehow, Leia seems fit. And then there was once where I was talking to my colleagues about the baby and randomly referred my tummy as “bun bun”, someone mentioned that Princess Leia has 2 buns on her head as a joke and I was like going in my head, “hey… coincidence much?”. So over the months, the name Leia just grew on me and we eventually decided on it when Leia was born.

Leia means child of heaven; heavenly flowers or relaxed depending on the origin, and it’s close enough to what I was looking for!

I’m biased, but it’s such a beautiful name.

Since I got to choose the english name, daddy get full jurisdiction on Leia’s Chinese name and we are both happy beings. And so, that’s the story on why Leia’s name doesn’t start with a J.

It’s such a joy watching Leia grow every day, and I almost forgot the feeling of having a newborn baby! The little princess also have me gushing over her daily and daddy says I am definitely bias and show favouritism. I don’t think I am, but simply relishing in the babyness of it all, fat rolls and chuckles. Maybe it’s age, I look at her and my eyes turn heart-shaped and I just wanna hold her close to me and take in all the baby smell. Awwwww..

And I guess there is no better day than today to publish this post on our princess Leia’s name. It’s Star Wars Day, May the force (fourth) be with you. 🙂

P.s. am totally not a Star Wars fan and nope, I didn’t name her for the love of the Star Wars.