At least it wasn't Vladislav: Baby girl named after Tampa Bay Lightning's Nikita Kucherov

TAMPA

Laine Franklin wanted to surprise her husband with some big news at a Tampa Bay Lightning game last year. She gave Eric Franklin a ThunderBug onesie. She was pregnant. "Let's name the baby after the Bolts player who scores the first goal tonight," the husband told his wife. It was supposed to be a joke. That night, the Lightning's Nikita Kucherov scored the first goal.

Eight months later, Nikita Annette Franklin was born at 5:48 a.m. Tuesday at Florida Hospital Tampa. The baby weighed 8 pounds and was 20 inches long.

At least it wasn't Vladislav Namestnikov or Ondrej Palat who scored that goal.

After that game, the more the couple thought about the name Nikita, the more they liked it.

"I didn't think she (Laine) was actually going to do it," said Eric Franklin, a 28-year-old Web developer. "But she ended up wanting the name more than I did."

The couple went back and forth over whether they were really going to name their first child after a hockey player.

"We weren't sure about the name at first," said Laine Franklin, 26, a teacher at Hunters Green Elementary School. "But it worked out, and we love it for her."

They started calling the baby Nikita during her pregnancy. The name stuck.

But what if the baby had been a boy?

"If it was a boy we were going to name it Nick or Nicholas," the mother said. "I'm not sure how it would've gone any other way, but we would've made some sort of variation on the name."

She said her husband is more of a Lightning fan than she is.

He said his wife was the one who wanted to keep the name Nikita.

"We joked around about naming the baby after the first person who scored, and sure enough we did," Laine Franklin said. "We said, 'Well, it's probably going to be Nikita (Kucherov) who scores first.' "

Turns out, Kucherov was the couple's favorite player all along. Together they collected news articles, pictures and hockey pucks from Kucherov for their daughter's baby book. Laine Franklin's mom bought a No. 86 jersey.

"He's been my favorite player for a while," Eric Franklin said. "It seems like he always scores every game we are there."

Picking a name out of a baby book didn't really thrill the new parents. Naming their daughter after their favorite hockey player gave them a fun story to tell her when she's older.

"Hopefully my daughter turns into a Lightning fan like us," the father said.

Nikita Franklin already has a closet fully stocked with Lightning onesies and dresses to come home to.

"She's going to be all decked out next season," Laine Franklin said.

The father could have gone to Tuesday night's Game 6 of the Eastern Conference final between the Lightning and the Pittsburgh Penguins.

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"We had good tickets," he said. "But I'd rather be watching the game from the hospital with my baby."

Contact Chelsea Tatham at ctatham@tampabay.com. Follow @chelseatatham.