When we named our first child Cayenne; it really separated — not the men from boys, nor the whites from the eggs, but rather — the foodies from non-foodies. Those who inquired, “Like the Porsche?” revealed quite a lot. “Cayenne” refers to a hot pepper, a well known spice, used fresh in cooking and also often dried and ground into powder. The name is from the French for “hot spice.” For us, it was a name we had on our minds from our honeymoon; even though we weren’t planning kids, we loved the idea of that name and never forgot; and now with Caya, we never will.
When it came time to name our new little boy we considered various names and received some pretty fun ideas including Chuck (like the steak) and Caesar (like the salad). However, we fell in love with the name Garam. It derives from garam masala and from Hindi translates as “hot spices”, the plural of cayenne, how wonderful! And, guess what spice is frequently found in dishes with garam masala? Cayenne! An interesting note is that in French cayenne refers to the spice (or capsaicin content) level; while in Hindi garam refers to the intensity of the spice, not the spice.
We always wanted names with nicknames. Cayenne has the nickname Caya from the front of her name. With Garam we took the latter half and went with the nickname Remi.
Welcome to the world Remi!