What’s in a Name: Evangeline Cherie

Naming a child is a HUGE responsibility that we took very seriously when it came to all our babies. I decided to break down how we came to choose the names we did and why starting with Evangeline, and ending with Atlas over the next couple weeks. There is an amazing resource for baby names but that also include spiritual and scriptural connections as well - The Name Book. We were able to use it for 2/3 babies and it really helped secure our choices in names.

Here is Part I -

EVANGELINE

Inherent Meaning: Bringer of Good News
Spiritual Connotation: Happy Messenger
Scripture: Psalm 37:6 NKJV
”He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.

When I was pregnant with Evie I slept throughout what felt like my entire pregnancy! I have always found the Lord of the Rings Trilogy incredibly relaxing to fall asleep to. I had the whole series on a loop (including The Hobbit trilogy - like I said I slept A LOT). I would always seem to wake up during the credits and I’d see Evangeline Lily’s name pop up and I’d think how pretty that name was. It didn’t hurt that I think she is gorgeous and I enjoy her movies.

Since we did not know our baby’s sex we had already decided that if we had a boy we would go with family names, so that was an easy choice and secured our boy name (funny enough we did not go with the boy name for Atlas). We just could not agree on a girl name - that should have been my first clue that we were having a girl!

At around halfway through my pregnancy my grandma Ida called with a prophetic word over our child. She told us that our baby “would have a word for the world.” We meditated on that and prayed for guidance on what direction we should go for this huge responsibility.

After a few weeks, I decided to finally look up the meaning behind Evangeline and that’s when I knew if we had a girl that would be her name. I talked it over with Zach and he fell in love with it as well. We decided that Evie would be her nickname and the name we would most likely call her day-to-day but Evangeline was our precious baby girl brought into this world with a word for it.

CHERIE

Inherent Meaning: Darling / Sweetheart
Spiritual Connotation: Valuable
Scripture: Proverbs 20:15 RSV

“There is gold, and abundance of costly stones; but the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel.”

For the past 10+ years I had wanted to call our daughter “Darling”. I could never quite get Zach on board with that name (he said he was OK with it, but I knew deep down it was a little “too out there” for him). I wanted to incorporate a family name into our daughter’s name as well in the event we did have a girl. I tried all of my names and nothing really had a pretty ring to it. So I decided to look at my mom and sister’s middle name - Cherie. The second I saw the English version of “Darling” I knew this was the name I was looking for! The scripture that goes with her name is so suiting as well since we are putting so much emphasis on raising our daughter to be knowledgable and wise in all that she does.

These beautiful names we gave our daughter carry so much meaning and our hopes and dreams for her, having the spiritual connotation to go with her name it helps to remind us of what we are speaking over her life daily when we call her by name. Our little

“EVIE CHERIE”.

Part II coming next week!