Where did you get the name?

People often ask me where I got the name for my first book, Loving Lily. The full title truly just popped into my head one day. However...the name Lily was a nickname of mine growing up. It was sometimes spelled by my family as “Lily” and sometimes “Lilly”. I got this name because, for some reason, when my younger brother was learning to speak, instead of saying “Suzi” he would call me something that sounded like “Lily”.

Also, I was in love with all things cat. So on my eight birthday, when I opened a huge present from my parents that turned out to be a bag of litter I knew immediately what it meant! I remember the excitement and happiness that I felt! Later that day, they took me to pick out a kitten from a new litter they had heard about. I picked out a grey and white one, because when I was even younger I used to crawl around and tell people I was a grey and white cat named “Fifi Fufu Kitty Meowy Grey and White”. That, no lie, was the name I gave myself. People assumed I would name my new kitten Fifi Fufu, but to me there was only one name I could give her, Lilly.

So fast-forward to one summer when I was a teenager. I browsed through a yard sale with my mom, sister, and brother where I found a baby name book. It was one of those books someone could use to lookup names when deciding what to name their new baby. This was before the internet, of course! I opened it to the Girl’s Names section and flipped to my full name, Suzanne, and was stunned to see the meaning of my name. Suzanne had only one meaning listed, a Hebrew meaning. It said, of all things, that in Hebrew, Suzanne meant Lily.