naming zelda

When I was pregnant with George, sometime prior to the 20 week ultrasound that revealed him to be a boy, I started having dreams starring Thomas Pynchon. Not being a huge fan of his, I had no idea what he looked like, so he mainly took the form of other people I knew or his likeness from the Simpsons: a guy with a paper bag over his head. Thomas Pynchon told me, quite insistently, to name my daughter Prairie. "Name your daughter Prairie!" he repeated to me, with no explanation, a few nights a week for a couple of months.

I could go on to tell you why I found this especially magical, why I was so inclined to do as he said, why it was such an uncanny thing to happen, recurring dream-style. But I'll spare you. George was a boy, and I irritatedly wrote dream-Pynchon off, seeing as how he was wrong about my baby's sex.

When I learned that I was (allegedly; I didn't believe it until I saw a real-life vulva) pregnant with a girl, I had a revelation: this was Prairie. Thomas Pynchon hadn't specified which baby I was to call Prairie. I'd been so silly, pissed at that dream-Pynchon for being wrong when he was actually so prescient. We made name lists and eventually narrowed the field to three or four choices. George had a favorite; Nathan had a favorite, and neither's favorite was Prairie. A short list came with us to the birth center, but in my heart of hearts, this baby was always Prairie. Until we saw her. And she just... wasn't a Prairie.

I know lots of people choose their child's name months in advance of his or her birth, and that seems to work out for them just fine. I don't know if they have regrets, or if they waffle upon seeing their baby and think, "wait; maybe this isn't Jayden/Michaela/Prudence." Even though I'd felt that this girl was my Prairie, I hadn't said as much out loud, we'd never announced her name, and I'd really only shared our frontrunners with my close friends. Seeing her changed my mind, and I was glad to be the name-after-birth sort of person rather than a vinyl-name-decal-on-the-nursery-wall-at-6-months-pregnant sort.

George was never on board with any name but Zelda, and when I read my horoscope in early December, seeing the Yiddish name Selig -- the feminization of which is Zelda -- felt providential in a way similar to paper bag-headed Thomas Pynchon informing my name choice. Zelda was in the top three on our list (I have an abiding love for Zelda Fitzgerald, to whom history -- and life, actually -- has not been kind. Nevertheless, she was an amazing talent and complicated woman: both traits I hope my daughter to have) but, more importantly, it was what George had been calling his sister all along. That was sweet, I thought. His first buy-in as a brother. We couldn't very well cast that aside, could we? So we tried it out. We talked about which name suited her best, and choosing any other name felt like usurping astrology and George at once. Plus, it fit. Zelda was it.

Marigold was always strictly a first name option. One Nathan had grown partial to in the final weeks of my pregnancy, when we forced ourselves to nail down three whole possible combinations. Zelda Marigold wasn't one of them, but something happened that hadn't occurred to me as a potentiality: she was both a Zelda and a Marigold.

Marigolds, signifiers of celebration. On the day of the dead, their blooms draw loved ones' souls back to their families. They drape the necks of brides and grooms, form wedding garlands. They treat illness. Their scent drives pests from the garden. They are protective and cheerful, adaptable. Pretty, but not ostentatious. Peppery. It helps, too, that our children's hair is golden. Not blonde, not really brown, but shiny halfway-between. I thought I'd have two dark-haired babes, but one, then two came with the same spun gold fuzz.

I don't know yet if she'll be a Zelda or a Goldie -- if the latter will be akin to honey, or chicken or buster as I call her brother, or if one will eventually feel truer. Either way, though, just as George is the George I knew he'd be the minute we settled on his name, I know we picked right for our girl. I hope she agrees. And maybe there's still a Prairie waiting in the wings.

Comments

[Abby@AppMtn]

Congratulations! She is tremendously lovely, and looks to be quite fierce - obviously a world-changing Zelda! What a fantastic name.