Florence is now an Australian!

Interestingly, Florence was not automatically an Australian Citizen (and has no right to Austrian Citizenship either), but the application process was typically kafkaesque, but successful. 

What is the inspiration for our daughters name? 

Florence; firstly we both think it is an elegant and attractive name. 

Secondly, its the only name that we are aware of that co-occurs on both Jacki's and my side of the family tree. Jacki's great grand mother was Florance Alma McGregor (via Ian & Joan). According to Joan there is an interesting story about FlorAnce's father miss-spelling her name on the birth certificate. 

And on mine, Florence Anna Cotterell (Born on 14 Aug 1895, passed away Jan 1985) married my great uncle Spencer Raleigh Farlow.

Her name also pays homage to Florence Nightingale, who must be considered one of the most influential and pioneering female scientists. While she is known as the founder of modern nursing, she was a statistician (and an early user of the pie chart; my least favourite type of chart!) who worked to convince the conservative male english establishment that the main cause of death during the Crimean War was infectious disease, not battle, with this very novel chart. 

I can imagine the crusty admiralty proclaiming "our soldiers die from bullets!", but in fact "Ten times more soldiers died from illnesses such as typhus, typhoid, cholera and dysentery than from battle wounds". 

In addition, we both also love the music and endless pun-o-tuinity of Florence and the Machine. 

Her middle name is for our midwife, Theresa, to whom we will be forever thankful. And also in cognizance of Maria Theresa, the matriarch of the austrohungarian empire, and one of the most influential women of all time (I suggest). Her father (lacking a son) paid huge sums of money to ensure the surrounding powers respected their boarders upon his death, they all agreed and took the money. He died and they all invaded. Unexpectedly, she kicked their butts, and proceed to build Vienna and Budapest into the cities there are (or were) today. 

And now for some gratuitous baby photos: