What’s your name?
Baby's middle name is a little on the wild side
August 26, 2010
Kristin Rushowy
TORONTO STAR
Nick Spence is a singer in the band Five Star Trailer Park.
Krista Spence has played bass and danced professionally.
Now, the couple isn’t making any predictions for their son’s future — but if he does end up being a performer, they say, they’ve already given him a cool name.
By day, both Krista and Nick are teachers and exposed to a lot of kids, and a lot of names. They wanted a “fresh name” for their son.
“I am Estonian and wanted one that would reflect his heritage, since our last name, Spence, is from dad,” says Krista.
“When I went looking for names, I checked the list of Estonian athletes at the Olympics and saw the name Timo — pronounced tee-moe,” who is a cross-country skier.
Then, for a middle name, they went a bit wild: Wolf.
“My husband had been so agreeable to the Estonian name that I thought it would be nice to have a fun middle name . . . My husband really likes wolves,” has been to the wolf centre in Haliburton and even “enjoys wearing wolf shirts” with paintings of wolves on them. (“Some would call them tacky,” she adds.)
Timo Wolf Spence was born July 14 at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital, weighing 7 lb., 5 oz.
When the couple attended pre-natal classes at the hospital, they would see signs for the “Joseph and Wolf Lebovic Health Complex.”
“I said ‘ha, imagine if our son’s middle name was Wolf,’ ” says Krista. “We kept thinking about it, and it was a great idea. (Nick) was pretty excited about it.”
Everyone loves the names and tells them they are cool choices, says mom.
Originally, they’d planned on spelling Timo with two i’s to help with pronunciation, but after they sent out an email birth announcement, Krista’s mom cautioned that the double-vowel name could prove difficult.
Her own name is Tiiu (tee-you) “and she gets so many variations on her name, random weird things, that she said it would be easier to use one i,” says Krista. “We changed it a day later.”
Did you recently have a baby and choose an interesting or unusual name? Email krushowy@thestar.ca