What's in her name: Maïa Blake

Choosing a name for a child you haven't even met or seen can be a challenge. Derek and I went back and forth on girls' names before Maïa was born. In fact, we only settled on the name Maia in the delivery room (the umlaut was still up for grabs at that point, however). So how did we pick her names? Here's a little history and fun facts about Maïa Blake and her name.

Derek and I visited Chapters quite a bit in the months leading up to Maïa's birth, reading and re-reading name books. Derek would suggest a name, I would say something like, "naw, I knew a girl in gradeschool with that name and she had a crooked tooth" (or something equally preposterous). Derek would veto the names I presented, too: "I like that name in French, but it really doesn't work in English." Yeah, months of this, I swear! We didn't know our first baby was going to be a girl, but luckily we had already decided on a boy's name, so we were only fighting a battle on one front.

In the last month or so before Maïa was born, I had grown partial to Maya, but I liked the spelling with an "i" - like the ancient Greek earth goddess. So I mentioned it to Derek. "But I suggested that name months ago and you rejected it: something about a girl in your highschool with a large head..." I said that I had gotten over it and that I liked the name now. Well, he had since changed his mind. In any case, every day, I would look at him over dinner or while we were out for a walk, or on any occasion, really, and say, "Maia is such a great name!" And he would smile. And he would find a new way, every time, to change the subject.

So how did I get my way? I think it had something to do with the fact that birthing a child is a long and arduous task, and perhaps he felt sorry for me. Or he felt that I had earned the right to name her. Or, maybe, just maybe, I had finally worn him down! In any case, he looked at me as I lay on the OR table, waiting for the emergency C-section to begin, and said something to the effect of: "I think Maia is a good name." (I don't remember the exact words as I was blissfully drugged up at that precise moment.)

We have since learned that besides being the ancient earth goddess to the Greeks (older even than Zeus!), Maia/Maya is also a south pacific sea goddess; she is also a Roman goddess, wife to Vulcan, and the month of May is named for her (so possibly a fertility goddess); it means "love" in an Eastern European language; it means "water" in Egyptian Arabic ("mayim" is Hebrew for water); and in Hinduism it means "illusion" (like the illusions through which we perceive the world). And let us not forget the Maya people in Mexico and Latin America.

A funny little aside: in our prenatal class, there were seven couples. To these seven couples, seven babies were born: two were boys, five were girls. Of the five girls, three were named Maya/Maia/Maïa. Not kidding. Ours was the first. When we sent out the birth announcement via email to our fellow classmates, we got one back from our friends (who thought they were having a boy) and they said that Maya had been on their list, too. Well, they had a girl. Also, one of the moms of the boys had Mya (same pronunciation) as the first girl's name on her list. I honestly don't know what it was about that name that year... That was back in Ottawa. I have yet to meet another little Maya/Maia here, so perhaps we've escaped it...

As for Maïa's middle name, some people have been known to jump to the wrong conclusions about it. Blake happens to be the name of Derek's favourite poet, William Blake. But that's not why we gave Maïa that name. She is my brother's namesake.

My brother, Jeffrey Blake Robillard, died on November 1, 1996. He was 35. He left behind four beautiful young children, who barely remember him now, I'm sure. They have since been adopted by their step-father and they carry his name. Until November 1, 2002, my brother had no namesakes, no one to carry on his name and his memory. So it was fitting, as Maïa burst into this world three weeks early and on the anniversary of Jeff's death, that we give our daughter Jeff's middle name.

And what's up with the umlaut? It's a French spelling. And I like it. And so does Maïa, for now. Her "i" is special because it has two dots. You'd think that someone with the odd spelling of Cristina would learn to give her kids normal names that everyone can spell. But in the end, I like my name without an H. There's a story there, in the absence of a letter, and what's a life without a story?