Going from Olga to Alex

I was recently reminded that I never told the story about Alex' name change on this blog.  (Thanks, Marcie!)  Some people know just because I have told them the story in person, but I thought I would share it here as well.

As you all know, before she was "Alex", she was "Olga".  Technically it is pronounced with a softer "hy" rather than a hard "g", but she didn't like it when we tried to say her name the way "they" said it in Ukraine.  (Clear as mud?)  So, Olga with a hard "g" it was.  A few weeks before she arrived for Christmas hosting I started thinking about names and whether she would want to keep Olga, change the spelling to Olya or Olha so it would be closer to the correct pronunciation or change it all together for a more "American" name.  I tried thinking of different names that suited her and the one that I always came back to was Alexandria...Alex for short.

After Alex arrived and got settled in we spoke to her about our plans to adopt her and told her we had an appointment in her country in January to start the process.  Normally we would not have spoken to her about that, but as we had our travel dates in hand we made the decision to tell her.  A few days after talking to her about that I brought up the subject of her name and asked if she would like to keep it or change it.  She quickly said she wanted to keep it.  She didn't even want to change the spelling so that people would pronounce it "more" correctly.  Of course that was fine by us and I never mentioned the name that I thought suited her.

Several days later as she was walking by the TV she heard someone say the name "Alex" on the show my two younger kids were watching.  She kept walking and got to the top of the stairs when she stopped and called down, "Mom, I like the name Alex".  I am fairly certain I flew up the stairs and told her I loved the name Alexandria for her using Alex as her nickname.  She got a little smile on her face and I told her to just think about it.  She came back downstairs about five minutes later and asked what the full name would be, and I told her.  Then she double checked that we would call her Alex for short.  I told her she could still keep Olga as her middle name and always go back to that if she didn't end up liking the name Alex after all.  And of course I told her that if she changed her mind anytime between then and when we had to fill out the paperwork requesting the name change to Alexandria Olga, that was okay, too.  She never changed her mind.

And so that is how Olga became Alex.