Frances. Explained.

In case you're interested, here's the back story to how we named our baby.  

We have no family connection to the name "Claire" - we just liked the name and it fit nicely with our last name.  In fact, I like saying Claire's full name in my best "top o' the mornin' to ya" Irish brogue.  

On the other hand, "Frances" is a name we picked because it's a family name in one form or another. See, it so happens that "Francis" is the middle name of both of Claire's grandfathers and Frances is the female version of that name (Francesca's father Frederick Francis Repetti appears below).  Also, Fred's mother's (a.k.a. Francesca's grandmother's) middle name was "Frances" and of course, you can't spell "Francesca" without "Frances."  That's four connections for those of you scoring at home.  Plus as an extra bonus, we also like the fact that St. Francis was an animal lover just like us.