My Name Is...

Shayna and I have had a lot of fun talking about names, and even had finally picked out a few sensible ones for boys (for some reason Asher was not very well recieved, so much for "My Name is Asher Lev"). But we have always had a favorite little girl's name, and even recieved a large print of one of our favorite paintings as a gift to commemorate the lovely name. It looks like this:



This was painted shortly after Marc Chagall married his beloved Bella, a constant companion in Chagall's lifelong struggles as a Russian Jewish artist (the sadly real-life story behind Potok's "Asher Lev," as Chagall was the castaway son of Hasidic parents). Whatever one may think of the inspiration of the painting, it is easy to think of it as a joyful celebration of the triumph of marriage in the face of adversity. As it says in the Talmud, "A wife is the joy of a man's heart." (Even though it also says: "When a scholar goes to seek out a bride he should take along an ignoramus as an expert," and "Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, 'Grow, grow.'") So we have always prized the name Bella, and pending unforeseen circumstances, think of this little one as: Bella Mae.

There is a catch though, and I toss this out for feedback from family and friends. We are also quite taken with a traditional Scottish name for little girls: Isla (pronounced Eye-lah). It is actually the ancient spelling of what is now referred to as "Islay" (also pronounced "Isla"), which is an island in the Inner Hebrides due west of Jura and is often called the "Queen of the Isles." It looks like this:



We would never burden a child with a name that is either the name of a fruit or would invariably confuse anyone outside of the Highlands (Izlah?, Eye-zlah?, Ilsa?), but we are considering sticking it in there somewhere to commemorate our time here. And because it is a beautiful name when spoken with a Motherwell lilt. So this little princess may have the names to prove it.