They flow well with first names and have a very nice meaning behind them.

I also like them because (except Charity) they are typically nice and short, so when you tend toward long first names, they don’t add too many letters.

I tend to pair a less common first name with a more common middle name, and Grace is also the middle name of my sister-in-law, mother-in-law, and late grandmother-in-law. So, since I loved the name anyway, it just made that the easy choice for using one of the fruits of the spirit for our daughter’s name.

She’s named after my grandmother Ruth and my mil’s favorite aunt Ruth, and we added Anne for my sister, whose middle name is Anne, to make Ruth sound even more feminine.

We also love the biblical story of Ruth and the meaning there.

So she’s Ruthanne Grace. After she was born, my niece (5yrs younger than us) had a baby… and she used Grace for the middle name, too. I was surprised she chose it because we’d just used it, but I couldn’t be more thrilled, as it really is a beautiful name, as are all the fruits of the spirit.

If I had another daughter, I would definitely use another one… either Joy or Hope most likely