her name

We get a lot of questions about Seneca's name: "How did we choose it?", "What does it mean?", etc. In honor of her 100th day, we thought it appropriate to give a little background.

We had the name Seneca in our head for awhile, at least a couple of years. We were in Seattle one weekend with some friends of Chandler's from his office. We were walking down the street when Chandler spotted a street signed with the name "Seneca Ave." One of his friends, Natalia, from Gibraltar, mentioned that in spanish, "Seneca" means "Wise One". We thought that was nice. From that day on, we kept coming back to the name and it stuck with us.

Fast forward to fall of 2008 and we found out that I was pregnant! We immediately thought of the name "Seneca" and knew we wanted to use it. I think we would have used it if the baby was a boy or a girl. If you do your research on the name "Seneca" you will find that it dates back to an ancient Roman philosopher (click the link). The etymology of the name actually lists it as being male gendered. But, we like the sound of it for a girl anyway.

It just so happens that Seneca is the name for some other notable things in our world:

- the Seneca Nation of Indians

- Seneca Falls in New York, the site of the Seneca Falls Convention for Women's Rights in 1848

- the Dodge Seneca, a super cool car from the 60's commonly used for police cars!

Seneca's middle name, Caroline, is after her great-grandmother (on Joelle's mother's side). We wanted a family name for her middle name and loved the name Caroline as well as the wonderful woman she would be named after. Great Grandma Sax is a spunky, independent, fun, clever and a loving human being. We couldn't think of a better namesake!