Alaskan Mom Petitions for Daughter's 'Awesome' Name Change

— -- If a mom in Alaska gets her way, her 1-year-old daughter will go by the middle name “Awesome.”

“She’s just fun and happy and super smart and it fits her personality,” Lisa Flores told ABC News of her daughter, Viviana. “It just fits. She’s an awesome little girl.”

Flores, 36, and the mother of one other child, 14-year-old son Dominic, filed a petition in her hometown of Juneau in February to change Viviana’s middle name from Contea to Awesome.

Though Flores, a single mom, says the name fits her daughter’s personality now, the idea for naming her daughter Awesome actually came before little Viviana was even born.

“When I was pregnant, it was a very unexpected surprise and I didn’t find out if it was a boy or girl,” Flores said. “Dominic and I would talk about names and he really wanted a 'D' name to match his.”

Flores says that when her son suggested the name “Danger” as one perfect for a girl or a boy, she turned it down because she “didn’t want a child who could live up to the name Danger Flores.”

A few weeks later, however, Dominic came up with the name “Awesome” and Flores agreed, but as a middle name only.

“I said, ‘That’s a great name but it’s so much to live up to and the baby will be teased,’” Flores recalled of the compromise.

When Flores gave birth to Viviana, the chaos of the delivery led her to forget about her and Dominic’s Awesome agreement and she chose to give Viviana the middle name of Contea instead.

“A few months later, Dominic reminded me and he was pretty sad about it and I’ve been working to change it since,” Flores said.

Flores has completed the requirements of both notifying Viviana’s birth father and filing a four-week public notice in the local newspaper. The public notice landed Flores and her family on the front page of the local newspaper, The Juneau Empire, which came as a surprise to Flores.

"I don't understand all the attention," Flores told ABC News.

She has a hearing scheduled for July 7, at which time she will go before a judge and explain why her daughter should be named Viviana Awesome Flores.

“The purpose is to make sure I’m not trying to hide her from anybody,” Flores said of the court date. “And the judge has to know that reason why I’m changing her name is not to get out of trouble or skirt the law in some way.”

Though Flores says Viviana is too young to understand the legal filings over her name, Dominic is “pretty pleased” and “walking around with a smile on his face." Flores says her friends and family are all for the name Awesome, too.

“Everyone is pretty supportive and they think it’s pretty neat,” Flores said. “The parents at the daycare now call Viviana ‘Awesome’ when they see her.”