Before we found out the gender of our first child, we had 2 lists of names. Of course, the girl’s list was much longer. It seems as though both girl’s clothes and names are in more abundance than boy’s…

I’m a big fan of Greek names. So names such as ‘Allegra, Aurora, Delfina, Seraphina’ were included in the list, as well as ‘Imogen’ and ‘Constance’. But my all-time favourite is ‘Olympia’.

At the end of last year, hubby and I had the privilege to attend a friend’s wedding in Malaysia. I can still remember being captivated by a beautiful advertisement for Paco Rabbane’s latest fragrance, Olympea, as I walked through the Duty Free shops. I had to pause for a moment to catch my breath as I admired the stunning imagery. Everything, from the Greek columns, to the white Grecian dress, to the golden wreath had me in awe. Thinking nothing more of it, I walked on to our Boarding Gate. Little did I know that our daughter was to be conceived on our vacation!

After we found out that Bub #2 is a girl, I had my heart set on ‘Olympia’, because the name ‘Olympia’ fits all of our naming criteria: it’s phonetic (hubby’s criteria), we don’t know anyone personally with the name (both), it ends in ‘a’ and is Grecian (mine).

However, hubby was not a fan of the name at the start. The old me would have done everything in my power to convince, manipulate or guilt-trip him into agreeing with me on the name. I’m the one giving birth to her! I would have said in the past.

But deep down, I knew that this was an opportunity for me to show my love, respect and obedience to him as both my husband and head of our family since this is what the Lord would want me to do. So, I simply waited. And prayed. I was even happy for him to conjure up another name.

To my surprise, after 7 months, one day out of the blue hubby said that he likes the name ‘Olympia’. I was overjoyed! The name is truly ‘heaven-scent’ :)