This Post is Brought to You by the Letter "J"

We celebrated our first Valentine's Day in 2010 by spending the weekend in New York City.  We took a train directly from Atlantic City to New York, but didn't have set plans on how to get home.  Yes, this planner can be highly influenced by the spontaneous love of her life.  We ended up hopping three different trains to get home, and we spent the time talking about any and everything...and cuddling.  So much cuddling that the miserable woman across from us said something.

One of the things we talked about was baby names that we liked.  Not that we had any plans at the time - we were just enjoying getting to know each other better.  It was on this trip home that we realized the J coincidence.  Both of us come from families where all the kids' names start with J.  My parents had Jennifer, James, and Jessica; Jared's parents had Jonathan, Jared, and Jessica (yeah, this makes family get-togethers pretty confusing).  What are the odds??

I don't usually get sentimental or crazy about fate or whatever you want to call it.  But given these circumstances, how could we not give our future kids names that begin with J?  Of course, this disrupts my plans of having a Sara and Sean in my life, but some things just can't be overlooked!

This works out for Jared, though.  He's always loved the name Jasmine.  I like it too, but I'm not sure how well it would fit with our future daughter.  I'm an Irish girl with super genes (all of the girls in my family look alike, even my great-niece who's father is Egyptian and black as night); Jared is a mix of German and some other nationality that happened to give him dark hair and the ability to tan (read "jealous, Irish wife").  I just don't see Jasmine fitting a pale, Irish girl, do you?

We agreed on a boy's name that starts with J.  Jacob Allen.  Jacob seems to be gaining popularity again, according to the Baby Name websites, and I imagine this is because of Twilight.  I'm a big Twilight fan so I don't want the accusation that we named him after Jacob Black (uh, no way... Team Edward!!!), but Jacob Allen is the perfect name.  Our little boy's name, and I love it. <3

I don't remember how we came across this name - maybe it was in a Baby Name list somewhere.  We both love the name Jana Marie for our future daughter.  Its an Irish name, so very fitting.  It seems to be pretty unique, too, without sounding like a disease which is nice.  Jana Marie - our little girl's name. <3