Many pasta meals inspire baby’s name
Grateful couple to call first child Olivia
For Arkansas couple Jordan and Justin Garton, one restaurant chain went from a date-night spot to a refuge in a tough time to part of the inspiration for their first child’s name.
The name the pair chose for the girl due Dec. 6 is Olivia Garton, which evokes both their daughter’s Italian heritage and the Olive Garden restaurant chain.
When the Gartons were newlyweds struggling to make ends meet in 2015, the restaurant’s Never Ending Pasta Pass caught Jordan Garton’s eye. The $100 pass goes on sale once a year and entitles the holder to unlimited pasta, along with soup, salad and bread sticks, for about two months.
The pass usually sells out in seconds. Jordan Garton, 26, watched the online countdown and clicked as fast as she could, snagging the couple seven weeks of Italian cuisine.
“My husband and I have always loved Olive Garden, having gone on several date nights there,” the Greenbrier native told Arkansas Online in a Facebook message. “We didn’t realize just how smart of an investment it was until afterwards.”
The couple, who now live in Fort Smith, would dine at the restaurant nearly every night and eat leftovers for lunch the next day. Saving money on groceries and bonding with the staff helped the pair make the best of a financially difficult time, Jordan Garton said.
“It was always nice to come in to the restaurant and have those friendly familiar faces greet us with ‘Hey, Justin and Jordan! Is it the usual tonight?’” she said.
Garton said her favorite dish is ravioli di portobello, while her husband, 28, likes the braised beef and tortelloni.
When Jordan Garton got pregnant, the third-generation Italian-American knew she wanted a name that paid homage to her family.
“We looked at a list of Italian girl names and none of them really felt perfect until we landed on Olivia,” she said.
The pair also considered Olive, but even though they liked the humor in the name sounding like the restaurant, they settled on something subtler.
Still, a photo Justin Garton tweeted of a custom onesie a friend designed for the couple, bearing his daughter’s name in the restaurant logo’s style, drew Olive Garden’s attention — the chain offered to send a special package for the baby.
When Jordan Garton tells her daughter about her name, she said, she’ll be sure the girl knows how going through hard times made her parents a stronger couple.
“Just because life knocks you down, that doesn’t mean anything about who you are as a person,” she said.