Team Bruns Blog: Vivian Elise Bruns

I wish there was a fabulous, insightful story to her name, but it's really mostly about us just flat out liking it. With both Walt and Oscar, we tied family names into them (Walt's middle name is Hill, which is Chris's dad's middle name and his grandma's maiden name; Oscar's middle name is Angelo, which is my grandfather's middle name). The boys' first names are just good old fashioned names that we liked.

We love the old fashioned, classic first names (think: uncommon, but not unrecognizable), so that was a good place to start. After perusing a list of Hollywood actresses in the 1930s/1940s we came across Vivian and loved it. It's super feminine and we loved the first letter "V".

Then came the middle name. Boy, I struggled with this! Chris and I each had a favorite first name and both agreed on Chris's first choice (read: he won). But, with that he gave me full creative liberties on the middle name. Between both of our families, so many names have been used (I know, I know -- names can be used more than once!) and nothing was clicking with me. I removed the variable of using a family name and just concentrated on names I liked. Elise was on the list pretty early on. I just kept eliminating the other ideas and realized this was the one I liked the most.