The story behind the name Zarya Jill

Since we announced that we're expecting a girl and that her name will be Zarya Jill Sandeen, many people have asked us how we chose these names.

Zarya - Although the name Zarya looks and sounds like it might be a name from East Africa, it's actually Russian.  It should be very easy for Tanzanians to say, though, which is important to us.  But for the story...  Back in 2008, my sister Alyssa's friend Dorothy was pregnant and wanted an unusual name for her baby.  I've always loved names and coming up with interesting ones, so Alyssa e-mailed me in Tanzania to see if I might have suggestions.  I had a very fun time making a long list of unusual biblical names, names from East Africa, and even making a few up.  I played around with sounds and syllables and invented a few that I thought were pretty, and one of these was Zarya.  Alyssa's friend didn't end up using the name Zarya, but she did quite like it.  I remembered the name and kept it in the back of my mind in case some friend in the future was ever looking for an out-of-the-ordinary name.

Andrew and I were engaged on December 27, 2008, and on January 1, 2009, I flew away to Tanzania.  We communicated as best as I could by Skype phone calls and e-mail, but it was pretty difficult to have a long-distance relationship.  Sometimes we just wanted to do something fun together!  One day we came up with the idea of picking out names for our future children.  We both said, "Well, I already have a favorite girl name."  So we agreed that we'd each just say the name we liked and then start looking at other options and be honest about what we thought of the other person's idea.  So on the count of three, I said, "Zarya!" and Andrew said, "Zorah!"  He immediately said, "Zarya?  That's an awful lot like Zorah, except prettier!" We looked it up online and found out that it was a Russian name that means "dawn" or "sunrise", so it turns out I didn't actually make it up.  Our wedding had a sunrise theme, so it seemed perfect.  We considered other names, but they never quite matched up to Zarya.  

Jill - Since Zarya is a bit of an uncommon name, we wanted something short and familiar for the middle name.  When we found out we were expecting a baby, we started working on figuring out a good middle name to go with Zarya.  We came up with a list of options, but weren't too keen on any of them.  Then, one afternoon when we were listening to music, a song by Jill Phillips came on my iPod.  Andrew and I don't have quite the same taste in music, but we both love Jill Phillips and her songs.  I said, "Hey, what about the name Jill?"  Andrew was quite positive about it and looked it up, and discovered it means "sweetheart".  Who wouldn't want a little sweetheart daughter?  We continued to brainstorm about other names for months, but consistently came back to Jill, and a few days before we found out we were having a girl, we agreed that Zarya Jill it would be if we had a girl.