How'd We Get "Juliet"?

Long before we knew that Baby Donald 3.0 (now known as Juliet) was a girl, I had fallen in love with the name Aurora. I thought for sure that my next girl after Annabelle would be named Aurora. Keith likes the name, but isn't in love with it like I am. One day not long after we discovered that we were pregnant with baby #3, I had mentioned that I kinda liked the name Juliet. Keith immediately jumped all over that name.

I think the reasons that I feel a connection to the name "Juliet" is because I have always really liked the Romeo and Juliet story. I was a fan of the story when I was in middle school when we watched the movie in 8th grade English class. I chose a scene from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to act out in my 9th grade English class, and I wrote a "Verona Times" newspaper for a computer class in high school. Then many years later, when we visited Northern Italy in 2006, we made a trip to Verona, the residence of the Shakespeare's fictional Juliet. In Verona, we visited Casa di Giulietta (Juliet's House) where we were able to walk through the house created for the fictional Juliet character, stand on her famous balcony, and even rub her right breast for luck (oh yeah, and Keith got pooped on by a bird while we were there, but that has nothing to do with the story)!

Fast forward a few years to 2010... Marian (Keith's sister), Annabelle, and I tagged along on a business trip that Keith had in Munich, Germany. In Munich, Verona's "twin town", we happened upon the same bronze statue of Juliet that I saw in Verona. It turns out that Munich's Juliet statue was a gift from Verona. Of course, we rubbed her breast for luck there too!

Keith's connection to Juliet, in my opinion, stems from his infatuation with another fictional Juliet, Dr. Juliet Burke from LOST. Simple as that.

Because we both really like the name Juliet, it was definitely a top choice for a possible girl name for Baby Donald 3.0. When we told the kids about it, they didn't like it at all at first. Once we showed them the trailer (and website for) the new Gnomeo & Juliet movie, they warmed up to the name a bit (but only if baby had brown hair and green eyes).

When Juliet was born, we immediately decided that she was 100% "Juliet"! She is a perfect little Juliet, and I love that we both feel a connection to her name!

One final note, when I was in the hospital after giving birth to Juliet, the movie Letters to Juliet was one of the on-demand movies available to watch. I had never even heard of the movie, but was very excited to watch it based on the name alone, and even more excited when I realized that it was set in Verona and revolved around the letters to Juliet that are left at the Casa di Giulietta!