Names

The meaning of names is very important to Turks. After being asked the question “What does your name mean?” hundreds of times over the last few years, we knew we had to take the meanings of potential names into consideration. (My name is derived from a name meaning “noble” and “kind”.)

For example, our favorite nurse’s name is Ozlem, meaning “desire”. Ozlem’s mother named her that because she had a friend, Ozlem, who was fair-skinned and she desired her daughter to have fair skin as well. If you’ve ever been to Turkey, you would know how rare fair skin is here; she ended up as dark-skinned as the rest of her family.

We didn’t rush naming our daughters. They were born July 16th and finally named them on July 24th. During this time, we referred to them as the “bigger one” and the “little one”. The signs on their monitors read “Bebek 1 Randall” and Bebek 2 Randall”. Scott & I liked different types of names, so even though we had made attempts to agree on names, none of the names are our lists matched. Finally, in the end we narrowed it down to six and then down to the final two. The older one is Natalie Carolyn, and the younger one is Sophia Marlena. Natalie is related to the word Nativity / Jesus' coming to the world. Sophia is the Greek word for wisdom. Carolyn and Marlena are forms of our mothers' names, Carol and Marlene.

A friend recommended this website to guide our naming process. Do you know what your name means or where it came from?