The story of how we decided on Maia's name still makes me so happy. When we first told Serenity she was going to be a big sister again, she told us that we should name the baby Pearl, if she was a girl, and if we were having a boy the baby should be Starfish. It was so cute, and we called the baby Starfish from that point on. Even after we found out we were expecting a girl.
I was surfing baby name websites (one of my absolute favorite activities), looking for baby names that mean Pearl. One website I found said that in Scandinavia and Scotland, the meaning of the name Maia is Pearl! That was amazing, because Maia has always been on the top of my baby name list since I was in middle school. And I always spend a lot of time searching for baby names from Sweden, since Ann lived there growing up.
I also searched for baby names that mean Starfish. As you might imagine, I didn't find many of those, but then one website listed the meaning of the name Marie as "star of the sea." That was perfect, and Marie was my Grandmother's middle name! And then Eric was telling John about our baby name ideas, and he said his Grandma was named Marie too. And of course, there's Jennie Marie =)
So I think we found the perfect name for our baby. It suits her, our sweet Maia Marie.