From whence this name came

Laura found a Gaelic name, Ailis, online. We liked the pronunciation "A-lis", but later found out in Gaelic its pronounced "Eye-Leash", which is fine, just not for our baby girl. So we looked n' looked, and got lots of suggestions, and thought about family names, and pretentious baby names, and read books, and searched online, and searched the scriptures. In the end we still liked Ailis the best, so we decided to change the spelling a little to get the pronunciation how we liked it, hence "Aelis".

A Google search revealed that Aelis is a French form of Alice used mostly in the 13th-15th centuries, which means Noble or Exalted. The Hebrew origin for Ailis means "consecrated to God" and is the same origin for Elizabeth, which is Great-grandma's middle name, Grandma's middle name, and mom's middle name (all on mom's side). Our first nurse in the mother-baby unit was Greek and told us in Greek Aelis means transparent or transcendent. So in the end, we've got a beautiful baby girl with a beautiful name with so much meaning its exhausting! Jewel is the name of my Grandmother who passed away last year. She was very close to me and a dear sister in the Lord. It is an honor to give her name to my daughter.

As a follow-up, my first post on this blog was "Baby name dropping". Laura and I both ran the name Aelis by two friends who we knew would give us their honest opinion. Both found it feminine, pretty, simple, and easy to pronounce. We thank them and henceforth copywright the "baby name drop" process so we can pay for Aelis to go to college.