What's in a Name?

I think naming a child is a huge first responsibility for parents. This is something Chris and I took VERY seriously. I couldn't wait to get baby name books from the library the minute I found out I was pregnant. We talked endlessly about girl names as well as boy names, but then put all the books away until we had the ultrasound.

Once we found out we were having a boy, we got down to business. Chris liked names like "Walker" and "Parker" and "Sawyer" and I did, too, but I just didn't like the sing-songyness of a first name ending in -er because our last name ends in -er. So a lot of name options got nixed just because of that.

I liked names that didn't have a nickname because I always hated getting asked in school if I preferred to be called "Rebecca" or "Becky" and I also didn't like that if anyone DID call me by my full name, it almost always meant I was in trouble for something.

Eventually, we settled on Owen Robert. His middle name was determined long before his first name. It's the name of Chris's favorite uncle who was just 7 years older than him and died when he was 21.

Since seeing "Legends of the Fall," I had loved the name Samuel. And I loved how in the movie, they never called the youngest brother "Sam" or "Sammy," just "Samuel." So that was our second choice and we immediately knew when we got news our second one would be a boy that he would be Samuel David (David for my dad, who died in 2001 shortly after we got married.) Funny thing is, almost immediately after he was born, Samuel became Sammy - it just suited him perfectly!

I love this picture of them because they were just about the same ages here as William and Luke are now.

We didn't have an ultrasound with William, but I was CONVINCED he was a girl. We picked out a name and I called "her" by it whenever I would rub my tummy, dreaming of future mother-daughter pedicures. Seven days after my due date had passed, Chris told me we HAD to come up with a boy name which I thought was a colossal waste of time. We were waffling between Jack and Luke (middle name would be Gregory after Chris's dad) when I said, "What about William? We liked that name at the beginning." Chris immediately said, "That's it. It's William." Two days later, William showed up.

Can I just tell you how difficult it is to come up with this many boy names? When we had the ultrasound for our last one and found out we were to add a fourth son to the mix, I was SO DONE picking out boy names. We really wrestled with it for a long time and this was definitely the hardest to decide on. My pick early on was Cash but Chris didn't like it. Another favorite was Gage, but both of those options seemed a bit trendy and didn't match up with the classic names we had picked for the older three.

We finally decided on Wyatt and the middle name would be Christopher, since we had pretty much run out of other male family members. We got into the hospital elevator on the way up to have him and Chris asked if I was really set on Wyatt. I'd been having second thoughts and told him I really still liked Luke. Less than an hour later, we welcomed Luke Christopher into the world.

But now I would like to present.....Jaden and Mike.

A few days ago William decided he would like to be called "Jaden" and we have to call Luke "Mike." Not sure why we agonized so much over their names if they were just going to change them anyway.