a rose by any other name would smell as sweet...

My youngest daughter was without a name for...roughly 48 hrs after her birth.

We were, for no concrete reason, expecting a boy, whom we would have named Peter. (Peter was my grandfather's name). A very close friend of ours died in an automobile accident 3 months before she was born, and his name was Dean. So we decided that we wanted to give our baby his name, in some form. So going into it, the name we decided on for baby, was Peter Dean.

Anyhow... it was day 2 after having the baby (who turned out to be A GIRL), and my brother-in-law showed up at the hospital to meet his new neice, and after asking what we named her, and seeing our blank stares, he said "This is ridiculous! You don't have a name for this baby?" So he sat in the armchair to my left, and Mr Brown sat in the armchair to my right, and I laid in the bed, and lovely newborn littlest female brownlette was either in her bassinette, or she may have been snoozing on top of me, but anyhow...the NAME GAME ensued. I wanted Elizabeth. That was squelched immediately. I argued for what a great ClASSIC name it was, and how it could lend itself to all sorts of nicknames... NO. Anyhow , i really don't remember what all the other options were besides Elizabeth, but it all came down to bro-in-law's suggestion of "Jenna". I guess the hot chick on "Survivor" at that time was named Jenna. hahahaha.

My point being. We named her Jenna. Jenna Dean.

Elizabeth has all sorts of options like Ellie and Liza and Beth and so on. But you would NOT BELIEVE the options we have since come up with for nicknames for "Jenna "

Jenny. Jen. Jenna Benna. Jelly Bean. Jelly Belly. Jelly. Belly. Jenny Penny. Jenna Penna. Jenster. Jenmeister. Jennie Bear. Benjer. Jenner-Benner. and the all-time, up-to- this- point- most- craziest- and- I- love- it nick-name, " Benjie Molina" (a baseball player-actually Bengie Molina, catcher for the Los Angeles Angeles of Aneheim) Benjiemolina.

I work with a girl named Jennifer, and her most abhored nickname that her mother ever gave her, was "Jeffie Bear". heh. I love it. So I call my Jen that sometimes.

I ruvs my littlest brownlette, and all the other brownlettes that contribute to the nickname craziness.
I whole-heartedly support names that lend themselves to nicknames. I just never realized that the name "Jenna" was one of them.