WE DID IT!

Join us in celebrating the birth of Minerva Iris Noble!

Born in the late hours of July 2020

• weight: 6 lbs 11 oz (.478 stone / 3033 g)

• head circumference: 13.5” (34.29 cm)

• length: 19.5” (49.53 cm)

• fingers and toes: 20 (no metric conversion available)

• favorite pet: the owl I guess

• mother’s maiden name: @#$@%@#$@

• aspect ratio: > 1

History and iconography

Minerva

The name Minerva comes from the Roman goddess of wisdom and war (and medicine, craft, commerce, and poetry). Minerva is the Roman version of Athena, and is often depicted with an owl to represent wisdom. After some long soul searching (and many months of discussion) we chose the name Minerva because of our shared study of the classics at Reed, and, well, because we like the name. The name Minerva was moderately popular in the later 1800s and early 1900s, but has trended below 0.01 % for the past 100 years. We are also leaning hard into an owl theme with the décor.

There is no, we repeat no, Harry Potter influence at play.

Iris

We wanted to give our daughter a middle name with an I, a flower name, and to continue with the theme of goddesses. Iris was the goddess of rainbows in both Greek and Roman mythology. We also have a lot of Iris flowers growing in the front yard, and will likely plant more this fall. The name Iris was fairly popular in the 1930s; having had a substantial resurgence in the past decade to currently rank in the top 50 baby names.

We also considered naming her after our childhood pets, whose names we can not list here because they’re also security questions for very important internet accounts.