As part of a special series, we’re presenting the narratives of local Exeter-area moms who chose to name their daughters after flowers. The hypothesis: choosing to name your child after a flower holds a story. So far we’ve interviewed the moms of a Lily, a Rose and a Tulip and our hypothesis has proven to be true! The flower naming stories are distinctive, lovely, and poignant. It’s been a delight for us to hear and record these tales. These accounts will be recorded here one at a time over the coming weeks. Enjoy and please feel free to share your own flower stories with us.

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This naming story features Tulip Nicholls. Her mother is Alissa Gallant, and grandmother is Kath Gallant, owner of Blue Moon Evolution Restaurant here in Exeter, NH (http://www.bluemoonevolution.com)

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She just was Tulip!

It was autumn of 2015 and Kath found herself planting hundreds of tulip bulbs in the yard of their house on the hill.  She paused from her garden work and had the happy thought: “When these tulips bloom in the spring, there will be a new baby in the family”.

April 7^th 2016, Alissa’s water broke and suddenly she and her husband found themselves dashing to the hospital two and a half weeks before their baby’s due date. Earlier in the pregnancy she and her husband had discussed and mused over names choices at length but never decided definitively on any name and, frankly, stopped thinking about it assuming they had plenty of time. 

Their beautiful baby daughter arrived with a flourish. She was healthy, everyone was ecstatic but, oops—what about her name? A day later, the baby still had no name. The nurses mentioned that leaving the hospital with a no-name baby created lots of hassle-ridden additional paperwork. They considered their daughter: she was bright, beautiful, sunshine-y, creating and emanating joy all around. In the hospital room they were surrounded by gifted glorious vases of spring tulips.  Everything she was to them seemed to also be expressed by these beautiful flowers. As Alissa put it: “We knew right then. She just was Tulip!”.

Over the winter, Kath moved out of that house on the hill and Alissa and her husband moved in. When the couple arrived home from the hospital with baby Tulip snug in the backseat of the Jeep, they were greeted by an array of newly born tulips heralding the arrival home of one of their own.