Wednesday, January 4, 2012

The Names We Chose - And The "C" Name We Didn't Choose

Colson (cole-son).

That was the name we had picked before we decided on Lincoln. I love that name, but I was a tad nervous of people shortening it and I wasn't sure I wanted that. So we hung on to both names till the hospital, and when Eric sent a picture text to our family after the delivery it said, "Meet Lincoln".

I guess he knew when he saw him what he wanted to call his little man :).

Even though we had looked for a C name, I really wanted to name him Lincoln, and was hoping we would both agree on it.

Unlike the great name debate of 2004 when we had our Ella Girl. Sweet Mercy.

Here is a rundown of the how's and why's of our kiddos names.

All their names, either their first or middle are "classic" in our eyes. We like a lot of older style names and family names.

#1 - Ella's name was old-fashioned at the time, and I loved that. Let me just get all sentimental on you and say that I remember my 23yr old self sitting in that hospital bed thinking, "I am a mom...this is by far the best day of my life". Her middle name is Julia, that's my mamas name.

(1st set of twins)

#2 - The first set was our easiest naming experience. Eric wanted to name the "Baby A" Reese Olivia, and that we did :). She was our first twin, and she has always been our little leader.

#3 - "Baby B" was my choice, and that was our quiet, reserved, meek Charlotte Grace. At home, I often call her Gracie.

(2nd set of twins)

#4 - I knew I wanted to use the name Kinley, or Joya and call her Joy, but Eric wasn't sold on "Joya" so we decided to name the first girl out of my womb Kinley Joy.

#5 - This seems funny to me now because she is SUCH a Raya, but I wanted to name her "Tess"...the nurses actually called her that. I do still looooove that name. But we just didn't feel settled on it, so we went back to the drawing board till I said, "hey, what about Raylin and we'll call her Raya??". We have never really called her Raylin though, she will always be Raya. Her middle name is June, Erics moms middle name and his grandmas first name.

#6 - Lincoln...well, you kinda already know that story :). His middle name is Lynch, that is Erics dads middle name.

and #7 - for this one...

Oh I kid, I kid.

Hahaha.

Giggle.

Snort.

We are not there yet.

I'll get to what we think and how we feel about adding more in my next post :).

Now it's your turn, how and why did you chose your kiddos names??

25 comments:

Claire said...

I am the mom to five daughters. When it came to naming my children, I wanted their names not to be chosen from a book but to come to me so their was more sentimental value and meaning. My girls are now 8, 6, 4, and 2 (twins).

Baby #1- Victoria is the feminine version of my fathers name. Her middle name is Katherine after my mothers name.

Baby #2- Stella is the name of my great-grandmother who unfortunately died on the exact day of Stella's birth. She was one of my female role models growing up and I valued her so much. She raised nine children :) As for her middle name, it's Rose. I wanted a pretty, classy name for my daughters middle name. When it came down to it, not too many names came to me, so we chose between our first and only two choices: Rose and Adelaide. We liked Rose better.

Baby #3- My third daughter was born the same year that my best friend had died from a car accident (I know, not the best luck). Her name was Elaina. I have always loved the name but didn't want to steal it from her while she was still alive. When she passed, I decided to name my baby after my friend, the sister I had known since I was three years old. Her middle name is Gabrielle, the name Elaina, the mother of three sons, had always wanted to name a daughter of hers.

Baby #4- (Twin 1) Ariana is a name I have always loved that my husband didn't like. With each pregnancy, I would bring up the name Ariana and the reply was always "no". For some reason, when I brought up the name for our 4th or 5th daughter, he loved it... or he was just tired of me asking! Her middle name is Aurielle (pronounced Ariel) another one of my favorite names and the name my mom was going to name me before she chose Claire.

Baby #5- (Twin 2) One night I awoke from a dream where I was the mother to one (not five!) daughter. She was named Arianna, and though I had never favored the name in the past, I instantly loved it and woke my husband up to share the name with him. He loved it! Her middle name is Dolores, the name of my husband's mother.

And those are the names of my girls! At the moment my family is complete, but if I ever get pregnant again, I love the name Scarlett for a girl and Jace for a boy!

I love the names of your children!

Laurel said...

Gregg --- chosen on the way to the hospital. We had only had a girl's name decided, and I told hubby we'd better have a boy's name. Gregg was hubby's best friend.

Cassandra (Cassie) --- shhhh... don't tell my hubby where I got this name. Our last name is Greek, and there was a beautiful Greek girl on a soap opera named Cassandra.

Jeremiah --- I wanted Jeremy, but hubby won out. Then, just before he was born, close friends got a cat and named it Jeremiah ... just so they could tell everyone we named our child after their cat.

Carissa & Lindsey (twins) --- we did not know until birth whether we were having 2 girls, 2 boys, or 1 of each. So, we had to have 3 sets of names chosen. I had a close friend named Carissa, and we just liked the name Lindsey. Didn't want "matchy" twin names.

Joshua --- decided to contiue with Biblical names.

Benjamin --- didn't decide until after he was born. Hubby wanted Benjamin, I wanted Tyler. A friend of mine was a nurse in OB and she decided Benjamin went best with older brother's names. So, I told people that my friend chose the name.

Hosanna Joy --- knew someone with the name and just loved it. Hubby decided this one, as well.

Josiah --- another good Biblical name.

Elijah --- another good Biblical name.

Sarah --- the orphanage chose her name.

Rachel --- the orphanage chose her name. However ... we had picked out the name Rachel if either of our last 2 boys had been a girl. So, it was really cool to adopt a Rachel.


First grandbaby is due in March. He will be named Noah David Matthew ... after 3 service men who died for our country, while serving in the army with my son, Gregg.


:) :) :)

Theresa said...

naming our son was a long process. We knew we were having a boy and I was so glad that we only had to decide on one name and not have to have a boy & a girl name!

My husband is Haitian and I'm Canadian so we wanted a name that was pronounced the same in both languages that our families speak.

I have loved the name Jeremiah since I was a young girl but it is Jeremie in Creole and so that was out for a first name.

The meaning of the name was important to me so I spent lots of time looking up meanings online and would suggest names to my husband but never agreed on any of them and I didn't really love any of them.

We finally decided on the name Micah Jeremiah. (we decided since people won't be calling him by his middle name that we could use Jeremiah) It was the first name that we both liked and I had at first just jokingly said it! I now think it was God giving us our son's name.

I love the meaning of both of his names and at 5 months old, can't imagine him with any other name!

Marisa said...

Ha, ha! You actually got me with the #7 comment. Too funny.

Lucas- we wanted to stick with classic, less "used" names. We just loved the sound of it and so far we've been lucky that very few people have tried to shorten it to Luke. His middle name is Nathan...for no reason. We just liked it.

Lydia- again, fell in love with this classic, old fashioned name. You are hearing a lot more Lydia's these days though. Kinda like Ella :) Her middle name is Grace and one of her nicknames is Gracie too! In fact, at home I think I call her that almost more than Lydia.

Ethan- clearly a much more popular name, but when he was born the name just wouldn't leave me. He was meant to be an Ethan. His middle name is Garrett, so that is a little more old school. And the combination just sounds so strong and masculine in my opinion. (And I later found out both names mean "strength")

Fun to hear how you named the kids!

victoria said...

So here are mine and oh the debate that my husband and I had about the first set...so much so that we did not even discuss names at all with the other 2 until we knew boy or girl (I make them quilts before birth so there is no possible surprise option)

Baby A-Steven Paul -named for my husband's father (Donald Paul) and his brother who has severe Down's Syndrome (Thomas Paul) this was a name we had picked out years ago, though we did not choose which twin would have the name until after we saw them.

Baby B-Jakob Allen- named for my Great-grandfather (just Jakob though changed to Jacob when he came to this country we switched it back) and my Grandfather Joseph Allen...I really wanted Deitrich which is my grandmother's maiden name instead of Jakob b/c of how popular it is (#1 for several years) and did not cave until the day before they came (@ 36 weeks)

Baby #3-Andrew Scott- named for my Great grandmother's brother and my husbands middle name (Look at this point we were to George or Otto for family names...seriously! ) I was being prepped for my C-Section before we decided Andrew not Thomas which is what my husband wanted. I thought that was not fair to his sisters who neither were even married then to name 2 kids after his brother incase they wanted the name, plus I liked Andrew better)

and Baby #4- Gretchen Carol named for my dad's great aunt (his grandmother died before he was born so she was his grandmother) and Tim's mother and grandmother's middle name are/were Carol. Plus his grandmother died while I was pregnant with her.

So that is what and why mine are...here is the other information...S&J would have been Amelia Rose and Adela may be Elizabeth After one of each of our grandmothers. Andrew would have been Mabel, which is what my FIL calls my MIL when he thinks she is acting like an old woman. ANd I think Gretchen could have been George or may be something like Nathan (which totally would not have been any sort of family name)

Other family names that we chose not to use Otto (at least 8 in the last 3 generations...and I am pretty sure why I did not have a brother! Just 4 sisters) Herman, George, Joseph, Alvin.

Oh and my husband thinks that there is one main rule to naming kids....do not give them a name that will get them beat up on the playground!

Oh and I wanted them each to have their own initials since Tim's family all use a single set of initials and that makes me nuts! Especially when names are chosen that they "don't really like" just to stick with the initials. Enjoy!

victoria said...

Oh and Gretchen actually took 2 1/2 days to name we knew the Carol middle but my husband really wanted Louise, I wanted Emmy (even Emmilouise) and then he really liked Sarah and Sophia all of which are family names.....yep ours was a great debate over 5 years!

tabby said...

"Baby a" was always going to be Lillian Bliss. I have loved that name forever and told my husband that if we ever had a girl that would be her name.
Baby b is Joelle Renee. Joelle I stumbled upon in a baby book and it was going to be a middle name to Leela ( after my paternal grandmother) but hubs didn't like Leela. So t was Joelle. Renee is my middle name because I couldn't think of anything else when I was pregnant... Now I have tons of names.

The Smith's said...

My first born is Addison Maelle. Addison because it was always my favourite name and probably stole it from Grey's Anatomy... and Maelle was my husband's choice for the middle name. It is inspired by the Vancouver 2010 Olympic winner, Maelle Rickards of Team Canada who won gold in snowboarding.

As for baby number two... no idea who is growing inside of me apart from the fact that I had a dream about naming a boy Jacob which would be after my Gramps it was his middle name. So we shall see!

Tiffany said...

This is a cute post. It's funny how when we name our children that we really love their name, but the older they get how they really 'fit" their name. :) It's God's way of letting us know that we did right.

I wish I could play along, but I do not use my kid's names on the blog. I can say that I chose their names based on my heritage (I'm part Irish). It was easy with my first, my daughter. I followed suit with the second, my little boy. It was harder though, because a lot of boy Irish names are weird. haha!

Jen said...

OH. MY. WORD...
I seriously thought I had missed this huge announcement or something at first....
I'm always the sucka :-)
love the names!!!

*Katy* said...

ok I was all excited for #7! you can't trick me like that :(

We didn't have a hard time picking out names because we wanted family names. We have George (hubby's great-grandfather and I wanted easy, gender specific names-have you ever heard of a girl named George?) Alexander (my Godson's brother) Ross (hubby's name) and then our last name :)

If George had been a girl he would have been Charlotte (my middle name and my grandmother's name-see why I like your daughters name? :) ) Ross (after hubby) and then our last name.

IF we have a 2nd baby we will still use Charlotte for a girl and then James for a boy.

Anonymous said...

I have three little rug rats...when it came time for names we really did not have any specific type of name we wanted. But as it turned out they all ended up with six letter K names...so random and not planned.

When we had Baby #1 we did not find out what we were having...so we spent lots of time with the baby names books. We had numerous boy names that we liked but really could not decide on a girls name. We finally agreed on Kaelin...I really don't know why other than we liked it. I also never thought of the name as being Kay Lynn...just as one word. Her middle name is Anne...which is also my middle name. If she would have been a boy the name was going to be Brayden Andrew...Andrew being my brother's names.

With Baby #2 we decided to find out what we were having...another girl. We again headed to the baby name book and decided on Kinsey...we just really thought that was a cute...there was a girl in college with this name...and I loved the fact that it is was just Kenzie and not Mackenzie...just changed the spelling a little. For a middle name we decided on Cade...my husband proposed to me in Cade's Cove in Tennessee so we thought it would be a great middle name. We really did not have a boys name for this pregnancy...guess we did not talk about names before finding out what we were having.

For Baby #3 we again found out ahead a time what we were having...a boy. This time we decided pretty early on Malakai...but wanted to call him Kai...we thought it was a great name. My husband ended up having a co-worker name his son Malachi and call him Chi not long before us...so we started questioning our decision. We realized we were really more attached to the name Kai than Malakai so we decided to change it up a bit and that is when we came up with Kaison. His middle name is Michael which is also my husbands first name. Long before I was even pregnant for the third time we had already decided on another girls name Mahala Clare...Mahala was my husband's great great grandmother's name...we found it on a family tree and really loved it. Clare would be my mom's and grandmother's middle name.

So that is how we ended up being M4K...Mike, Katy, Kaelin, Kinsey and Kaison!!

Carrie said...

Ella Rose... Ella after my grandmother (Ella Mae), and Rose because I wanted something old-fashioned to go with it, and I knew she would be beautiful :)

Gracie Elizabeth.... Gracie after my hubbys grandmother, and Elizabeth after Elizabeth in the Bible. It took 3 years of fertility treatment to get our Ella, and Gracie came as very much a surprise. I feel like God has a special plan for her, since my getting pregnant naturally was 'against all odds'. I wanted her name to reflect that.

Claire said...

Claire here again... I just realized that I accidentally posted the same name when explaining how I named my fourth and fifth children. For both names I said the name was Arianna, but that is the name of my fifth daughter... my fourth daughter is named Grace.

Beth said...

I love reading people's stories about choosing their babies' names!

Like everyone, we went round and round when choosing our kids' names, but I am happy with them and can't imagine these little people being called anything else. I wanted traditional names. Nothing too trendy or popular (in this aspect we failed a bit... oh well!)

Baby #1-- William James
My father is William and my FIL is James

Baby #2(quad #1)-- Isabella Rose
I know that Isabella is way too popular right now, but this was the only name my husband really loved. We call her Izzie, so I just hope that most of the Isabellas go by Bella. Her middle name is Rose because the quads were born on my sister, Karen Rose's, birthday!

Baby #3(quad#2)-- Julia Kay
You remember back in middle school when you sit around with your girlfriends and decide how many kids you'll have and what you'll name them? Yeah, that was when I decided I would have a girl named Julia. Love this name! Traditional and feminine. Kay is my mother's middle name. ** nerdy side note-- Our last name starts with L and I love that her initials are JKL. In perfect alphabetical order!

Baby#4(quad #3)-- Andrew Douglas
When we first discovered we were pregnant and (so naively) assumed it was one baby, I told my husband I kind of hopede I would have a boy so Will could have a brother. That same day I suggested Andrew, but we would call him Drew. Douglas is my husband's middle name.

Baby #5(quad#4)-- Paige Judith
We were really running out of steam by this point. I actually found her name in a magazine, but was sure that my husband wouldn't like it. We were only days away from delivery and still hadn't come up with our final name so I finally mentioned it to him. Turns out he really liked it! Judith is my MIL's name.

Anonymous said...

I loved reading this.

Dustyn Kenny picked Dustin but I wanted the Y since Kenny's middle name is Bryan. His middle name is Wingfield which is Kenny's grandfather's middle name.

Carsyn I got to pick. YAY. His middle name is Joseph which is my grandfather's middle name.

The Sneaky Mommy said...

Love reading your naming stories!

Cloe Grace--always loved it and my husband's grandma was Grace
McClain Joshua--after my husband's middle name and his Irish great grandpa. Both boys have biblical middle names.
Carson Matthew--seemed to fit more naturally with McClain than any other name we could think of! Super meaningful, yes?
Maddox Andrew--a pattern had been started (CMC) so he ended it for us!

Melissa said...

My 4 year old is Clare (after the main character in the novel The Time Traveler's Wife which I read before I got pregnant with her) and middle name Margaret after my mom.
My 2 year old is Grace (family name and we loved the name) middle name Natalie (she was born two weeks before Christmas and Natalie means "born at Christmastime")
If we ever have a boy I have always loved the name Oliver, that was our boy name we picked out for both pregnancies :)

Corrina said...

I think I may have shared this before but my #1 daughter is Ella :) And we call my #2 daughter Gracie! Their names are actually Elianna Rose & Maleah Grace but we have similar nicknames! # 3 is Lily Cate!

Stacie@HobbitDoor said...

We were all about the book thing. In addition, we both came into the marriage with "have to have" names. Ralph got his first, Arwen Nicole, for Arwen in LOTR (we both read the books at a very young age and fell in love with them) and Nicole for his sister (but I also have a sister Nicole).

Greer Elizabeth was my pick. Couldn't tell you what book it was from. I read it in high school and fell in love with it. I picked Elizabeth because both of my great grandmas had it in their names, turns out one of Ralph's great grandma also had it in her name. Worked out great!

This one will be Storie Rose if they are a girl. "Story" was suggested by a friend via my sister as it goes with the other two but we liked how "Storie" mimics the spelling of my name. Rose is for one of Ralph's grandmothers.

For a boy we will use Obadiah Robert. Obadiah for the Biblical name and so we can call him "Obie" and Robert for my dad, brother, a grandfather and a plethora of uncles. ;0)

Erin said...

Kate,
I have read your blog for years, love it!
Then in June 2010 I found out I was expecting twin girls. Crazy as I read all these twin blogs for years. I loved the name Leora since I heard it at University and held onto it and I also loved the name Roxanne, Roxy for short. Well we were a few weeks away from the due date and I kept saying Leora and Roxy, Leora and Roxy and the more I said it the more I decided I just didn't like Roxanne! But what to name Baby B! I kept coming back to Raya on your blog, and how lovely Leora and Raya sounded. And that was that! So I sort of named my child after yours? Hope that's not too crazy! But Raya is her name through and through and I have never doubted my choice of names!
Erin

Jenny said...

Our first...we were going back and forth between Kaydance and Addison. One day we went to walmart to get the wood lettering to make a sign and they only had the letters for addison...thats how we picked between.

Our twin baby boys we named about each of our fathers. Drew and George

All of us have the same middle name...Daddy, me, Addy, Drew and George area all "Lee".

My daughter calls us the Lee Gregg family :)

Becky said...

Love, love your blog!!

Stephen Matthew- my husband's name, Matthew Stephen, in reverse. We also like those men in the Bible. His names mean, "Crowned gift of God." We call him Stevie. He's 2.

Lydia Faith- Lydia is a name I loved growing up, as well as Faith. I also like Lydia in the Bible. Her name means "beautiful" or "noble," and "faithful." She's 8 months.

We also chose verses from the Bible that refer to their name meanings. I just love baby names...and babies.

Anyone else have a whole baby name list growing up? Mine has changed a little since then. ;)

Tina Michelle said...

I love learning everyone's children's names and the meaning behind them. I loved the process of choosing our children's names.

#1 = Chaz Dean We found the name Chaz in a book and really liked it. I wanted something unique. We used to watch that Lois and Clark Superman show with an actor named Dean Cain and we just really liked the name Dean.

#2 = Brijet Caiwen My husband insisted on the name Bridget but I wanted a unique spelling and sound so I twisted it to Brijet. I realized we were kind of in alphabetical order and it would keep with that if we used a C middle name. I was working at a day care and there were a couple of my fave kiddos with a Kai/Cai/Ky beginning to their names. My husband, Wen, wanted her middle name to be Wen. So I just put the Cai in front of Wen and we both got out way.

#3 = Ainzley Blychel I really wanted to continue with the alphabetical order so I wanted an A name with a B middle. I saw the name Ainsley/Ansley on the internet somewhere and really loved it. I Preferred the z though so I decided on Ainzley and hubby agreed. I really liked that TV show Gilmore Girls and loved that actress Alexis Blydel. I was going to use Blydel as the middle name but my mom suggested I use my name, Michelle, in there somewhere so I made up Blychel.

Thanks for starting this and I had fun reading everyone else's responses!

Unknown said...

Can I still comment on this post? Is it too late?

I love reading where names come from... so interesting!!
Here are the names for our irish twins:
Annabelle Hart- Ann is after my mom (who died when I was a young teenager). Belle is after my husbands great grandmother, momma Belle. Hart is my grandmothers maiden name and my former middle name.

Emma Kathryn (aka Emma Kate)- Emma is after my great grandmother who's name was Emma but everyone called Emily. My sister is named after her also, so we say she is named after my sister :) Kathryn is after my AMAZING mother in law.

If we ever have anymore kids, there will be a George the 4th.