Friday, July 9, 2010

A Good Name is Better Than Great Riches

Back in February when Michelle said, "I love to hear how and why parents pick their kids' names!" I was in the throes of morning sickness and barely mustering enough energy to make it through a day.  So I put off a response...and I put it off some more...and I am just now being inspired to type out a few words on the topic! 

When I was pregnant with my first, we had a whole pool of names available to us.  We chose a boy name and a girl name well before the much-anticipated ultrasound.  When we found out he was a boy, we already knew he was to be Gavin, a name my mom had liked when naming my brother 20 years earlier (!) but my dad had vetoed.   We paired it with the middle name Christopher because Brian's middle name is also Christopher. 

When I was pregnant for the second time, name-choosing was again an easy process.  We decided to wait until after the ultrasound to choose names and when we found out she was a girl, we went back to the name we had chosen if Gavin had been a girl: Madelyn.  We tossed out many middle names before settling on Leah, which is my middle name. 

The name game took a new turn with the third pregnancy.  We decided not to find out what we were having ahead of time so we had to choose two names.  However, the names I like, Brian did not like...and the names he liked, I wasn't so crazy about.  The only thing we were sure about was that if the baby was a boy, he would have my dad's middle name (and my dad's dad's middle name): Baxter.  In the weeks before the birth, we made our decisions and when he was born and I saw that he was indeed a boy, we gave him the name Owen

Pregnancy number four presented another naming challenge.  We decided to find out the gender again and we also decided not to talk about names until after we knew therefore eliminating half of the difficult process.  When the tech announced we were expecting our third boy, the wheels began to turn...and turn...and turn.  We soon realized that there was only one name we both agreed on so rather than prolong the process, we settled on it right away: Benjamin.  The middle name was easy again.  We chose to give him my mom's dad's middle name: Cooper

The ironic thing is that though each child was given the middle name of a family member, we didn't realize until recently that they also have birthdays close to their namesakes.  Gavin Christopher (named after Brian Christopher) has a birthday the month before his daddy.  Madelyn Leah (named after me, Kristin Leah) has a birthday exactly three weeks before mine).  Owen Baxter (named after my dad, Ronald Baxter) has a birthday five days after my dad.  And Benjamin Cooper (named after my grandfather, Richard Cooper) was born just three days before his great-grandfather's birthday! 

How did you name your children?

4 comments:

  1. DH had already chosen the name for his first-born son before he ever met me. Fortunately, I liked the name ;) For the middle name, I picked a family name from my dad's side.

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  2. Names are tough around here. We didn't find out with #1 and close to 30 weeks agreed that if it were a girl we'd name her Erin. We both loved Elizabeth so that was easy. If it was a boy it was to be Joshua Michael (Tim's middle name). We also try to go with meanings of the name too. Erin Elizabeth means Peace in concecration with God.

    #2. I had a very strong feeling that this baby was a girl. We picked the name Maygen Nicole meaning Strong in Victory around 14 weeks and then at the 18 week ultrasound found out that our baby girl was probably never going to be born. We knew the Lord had been speaking to us when we picked her name. Oh how true. She is so strong and the Lord has protected her life. We spelled Maygen that way b/c we named her after my great grandma May.

    #3. We decided to find out and again found out we were having our third girl. It took a lot of time but we finally (37 weeks) picked Ada Rose meaning noble, happy, prosperous. Rose was after Tim's grandmother.

    #4. It was difficult b/c we couldn't nail down anything. We found out again and yep, "It's a girl!". We took a while and finally came up with Kylie Madison meaning Victorious;Strength in battle.

    #5. Who knows?!?! We didn't find out so we have to pick 2 names...and as history shows, it takes us a while!

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  3. That is so neat about their birthdays being close to their namesakes birthdays:)

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  4. That's very similar to the way we chose baby names! The first name is just one we like (Leah was our girl name for many years...I think our tastes are similar!), and for middle names, we use family names. We've been very conscious of choosing one from each grandparent's side. Ben's middle name is from his maternal grandpa's side, Kyle's from his paternal grandpa's side...Owen's middle name is from his maternal grandma's side, and Elise'e mddle name is from her paternal grandma's side! If God sends another baby, we'll get to be a little less fair about it all! ;)

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