WHITTIER - The local mother who gave birth to octuplets has chosen names with a biblical bent for her babies.
Photo Gallery: Octuplet birth to Whittier mother
According to Nadya Suleman's spokesman Mike Furtney, the six boys' names are Noah, Jonah, Jeremiah, Josiah, Isaiah and Makai. The two girls are called Maliyah and Nariyah.
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Furtney said the biblical names come from Suleman's spiritual inclinations.
"She's a very religious person, and she loves the sound of biblical names, and hopes that will give her kids a good solid foundation in the faith."
All eight children will share the middle name "Angel."
"(Suleman) sees them as angels," Furtney said Tuesday.
They will also share the surname Solomon, the last name of their biological father. Suleman has said the father was a friend and sperm donor, but her mother, Angela Suleman, has claimed that Solomon is romantically involved with Nadya.
The babies were born by in vitro fertilization oat Kaiser Permanente in Bellflower on Jan. 26. They came nine weeks before their due date, and weighed between 1 pound, 8 ounces and 3 pounds, 4 ounces.
The babies are in good health and should be released from the hospital in seven to 12 weeks.
They will join six siblings, ages 2 to 7. Many of those children also have biblically inspired names.
The oldest of Suleman's sons is Elijah Makai. Her first daughter is Amerah Yasmeen. Joshua Jacob, known as J.J., follows. Another son, Aiden, has no middle name. The 2-year-old twins are Calyssa Arielle, a girl, and Caleb Kai, a boy. Those children also bear the last name Solomon.
Furtney said he did not know whether the reuse of first son Elijah's middle name for one of his new brothers was to honor the 7-year-old or for some other reason.
Jennifer Moss, founder of babynames.com and author of "The One-in-a-Million Baby Name Book," works with families as a professional baby-name consultant.
Baby-naming services are becoming more popular as a way for parents to get opinions outside their own family and friends, Moss said.
Suleman chose the names after doing her own research, but Moss said the sizable task was well-completed.
"I think they did a great job," Moss said. "They didn't choose overly matching names."
She said the octuplets' names are "pseudo-biblical."
While some of the names are those of major characters in the Bible, others may be variations of more traditional names.
Noah means "rest" or "peace." A biblical character of the same name is known for building an ark that contained his family and a menagerie of animals when God flooded the Earth.
Jonah means "dove," and was the name of a reluctant prophet who was swallowed by and lived in the belly of a whale after fleeing from God's mandate to preach.
Jeremiah means "God will uplift." The Old Testament character was an often-morose prophet who is believed to have penned the books of Lamentations and Jeremiah.
Josiah, another form of the name Joseph, means "God will save." The name Josiah belonged to a wise king, who came to power as a child and reigned for 31 years around 600 B.C. The king was a contemporary of the prophet Jeremiah, who advised him during his reign.
Isaiah, one of the best-known prophets of the Old Testament, spoke extensively about the circumstances that would surround the birth of the Jewish Messiah. The name itself means "God is salvation."
Moss said the origin of the three remaining names are harder to trace.
Makai could be a reference to the angel Michael, whose name poses a question: "Who is like God?"
Maliyah could be a name based on the biblical character Leah, a wife of Jacob whose many sons gave rise to the tribes of Israel. That name means "weariness."
Moss said she had no background on the name Nariyah, and was not sure if it was a created name or was based on a biblical character.
She said shared middle names among siblings are not uncommon.
"It's a kind of tie to show that they all came from the same family," Moss said.