Before I was born, what other names had you thought of calling me?

If Isla had been a boy, she almost certainly would have been called James Gordon. James after Colin’s father who died when Colin was only about 6yrs old, and because I always liked the name anyway. The Gordon part was after both my dad and my Grandad.

We spent a few evenings sitting with friends going through the baby name book – it was quite fun actually to see what horrific names came up in the books! Colin came up with Samantha…while I have nothing against the name itself (it’s actually quite a nice name) there was no way I could call my child that! In the village we lived in in SW Scotland, the was a mum across the road who would open her door every night and scream out of it “Smamfa” – so there was no way I could use the name after that! Hearing it now still makes me think of Smamfa!

We came up with quite a few traditional Scottish names for her, and eventually settled on Alannah (which is more Irish than Scottish), only for it to be changed when she was born! Ah well, she wouldn’t have suited the original one anyway!