There's definitely an element of questionable insanity, that I once a pregnant lady, came up with a list of 200+ names for my speculative, fictitious, future baby.
I am still head-over-heels in love with my son's name, Kylan. He is now 17. Zamora is nearly a year old (yikes!) and I guarantee I lost even more hours of sleep name-obsessing this time around.
Zamora is commonly used as a Filipino last name. Resistive to the Z-trend of baby names, I was drawn to the ethnic significance of it's use as a first name. No, I am not related to anyone with the same last name so this made it all the more allowable to use it as a first name. And of course my Dad had to ask "what if she marries someone with the same last name?!".
I never did find the literal translation, but it helps that her name is derived from the Italian word Amore, which means love.
The conscious use of the letter Z is due to, for all intents and purposes: Zamora being my last (planned) child, my last love.
A few other lovely yet convenient , intentional, and comedic quirks that I'd like to throw into the pot:
-Z is the J-sound of the native Guam language. We jokingly call her Chamorra. She is part Chamorro.
-My husband and 4 step kids all have J-names. Her other play-name is Jamora.
-And lastly, for the amount of kids I have in my household, it's amazing that we added another. Zamora was our testament that we wanted "Some more (ahh!)".
She has endless nicknames: Zaz, Zazie, Zaza, Zam, Zami. I just call her baby girl. I only have one.
Lastly, I would have to add that I only chose Zamora's name after seeing her for the first time. She was definitely a fighter and a strong presence and I knew Zamora seemed the most fitting from my short list.
Anyway, onto sharing my short list of baby names that I obsessed countless hours over, because I don't ever plan on having a dozen or so more pregnancies. Each of them have a specific story and reason for making it to my shortlist, and I'd have to write a book one day to explain and share the rest of the names.
Perhaps I'll need to start assigning names to my shoes or even start a nursery of flowering plants to make use of these. They are all uniquely quirky but pretty, I promise.
Girls:
Ezrie
Koraline
Kyria
Linnea
Avida
Nivea
Evita
Evita
Zuri
Rafaella
Mazzen
Mazzen
Boys:
Titan
Avan
Lukas
Leland
Madden
Zenith
Quinze