As soon as we started thinking about having another baby, I started considering names for our new addition.
David is named after my husband. I actually wasn’t too keen on the idea, but it was important to him, so I agreed. With the stipulation that I got to name the next one.
There were a few names on my short list. Andrew, Benjamin. Both good names, but I wanted something a little more unique. Nothing too strange though. No Apple, Orange, Tangerine or anything you might send in a gift basket.
I also considered the Tease Factor. How easy was it to make fun of the name? I have a friend named Rhea who spent her entire childhood being called Diarrhea. Kids can be cruel. She still has emotional scars.
I liked Tucker, but shuddered at how I imagined a group of junior high boys in a locker room might distort that name. I didn’t want my son going through adolescence with an obscenity for a nickname.
Before we knew we were having a boy, I tried to come up with a girl’s name too, but never could decide on one I liked.
By the time we found out we were expecting a boy, I’d settled on Wade Campbell.
Wade is kind of an old fashioned name. One not heard a lot these days. I don’t think there will be three other Wades in his kindergarten class. But it’s not so odd that everyone will feel sorry for him. Or mistake him for the son of a Hollywood star.
I like the way Wade sounds, strong and solid.
Wade is also a slight homage to my favorite book. Here’s a trivia question for you. This would be under American Literature for $400, Alex. Can you name the book and the character who had a son named Wade? I don’t have a prize to give you, but it will be fun if you play along at home.
Campbell was my Paternal grandfather’s middle name. All the boys on my Dad’s side of the family, going back quite a few generations, have middle names that begin with C. Being an only child and a girl, I can’t carry on the last name, but I thought I could at least carry on that tradition.
I didn’t know my grandfather that well. I didn’t see him very often, and he was a quiet man that didn’t talk much. Growing up he was sort of a mystery to me. Unfortunately he still is, because by the time I was old enough to want to ask him questions about his life, he’d passed away. I do know that he was a gentle and patient man. He loved God, and played a big part in my Christian heritage.
So come this spring we’ll sign Wade Campbell on the birth certificate. A name that I hope will someday remind Wade of the past and a great-grandfather he never knew, and a name that in the future will be known as that of a good man.
How did you come up with you kid’s names? Does your name have special meaning? Talk to me.
I love the name you picked out! 🙂 How exciting! Our daughter is named Abigail Christine. I had always dreamed of having a Lauren, and when we first got pregnant, I was convinced it was a girl so I thought of her as Lauren. We lost that baby, and I just couldn’t bear to name another baby with the name Lauren. So my mom said one day (after I got pregnant again) that she always wanted to have a granddaughter named Abby. I secretly liked that name, so we chose that one and added my sis’s name as the middle one!
DH is a Jr, so if baby 1 were a boy, he would have been a Third. I’d always liked the name “Emily” and “Ann” is my middle name, my mom’s, and my MIL’s, so it was a natural, easy choice! (Baby 1 was a girl BTW and yes, she’s Emily Ann).
Baby #2 was so much harder. Boy would have been easy, but it was another girl. We went ’round and ’round with first names. Middle name was easy. Both DH and I had siblings who died very young (in DH’s case, before he was born) whose middle names were both Marie, so we wanted Marie for a middle name. Finding a girl’s name we both liked AND that had a good cadence was hard.
We considered Sabrina for a while. She was very nearly a Savannah, too. But one day in church, we were looking across the way and saw one of DH’s former students named Megan. DH leaned over and whispered, “Hey – Megan Marie has a nice ring to it!” We have a picture in one of the albums of our Megan with that Megan along with an explanation of the name.
We later found out that “Megan” is a form of “Margaret” which is my maternal grandmother’s name, so that was a nice, added bonus.
our first daughter was easy – elizabeth, because i LOVE that name. then we thought we were having a boy and the doctor said “its a boy!” so she was baby girl for about 3 days while we settled on gracie. they both have hindi middle names because my husband was born in india.
our boy we named colin, which is my husband’s name in gaelic, and paul, after my dad who died. thank goodness he was a boy, because we were out of girl names!!!!
We aren’t finding out the sex, but I liked Kaelyn for a girl, and he liked it too, then we were driving one day and talking about boy’s names, and he wanted to name it after him, and I didn’t really care for that Idea, and we randomly came up with the name Jack Patrick, and both loved it! =)
I know the book and the character, but I won’t say.
You know your name was given to you because I wanted a name from your Irish heritage. I wanted to give my first girl the name Kelly because that was my great-great grandparents name that came from Ireland. Uncle Jerry gave your cousin Kelly that name . Since she was 2 years older than you I decided on Collen the gaelic word for girl. I also didn’t want a name that could be nicknamed easily.
Rebecca was the name of a good friend from Ludlow Fall Camp days when your Dad was a camper.
Sorry I miss spelled your name. It was just a typo.
Rebecca is also the middle name of my grandmother.
Also, remember I get to name the next one so that
the initials are BIOS. Great description of a baby, or
of any child for that matter until they leave home.
Only us computer geeks will get that. But then you almost could have been DOS, after marriage.
When we have our babies…our first girl will be named Natalie Mae. Mae is my middle name, passed down from my Mother, passed down from her mother. So, it is tradition for first born daughters to have the middle name Mae.
Our first boy…we keep changing that name. I like Benjamin Aaron. We’ll see…
I hope we need to come up with four names in total. We would love to have four or more kids.
I love how your parents posted about your name – too cute! My first son was the first grandson on both sides of our family so we decided to name him after both our dads – William James. Our second son is Evan Boyd – because my husband liked the name Evan and his middle name is Boyd (it’s an old family name that is on its fourth generation now!) We are hoping to someday have a girl who we have decided will be Heather Faith after a close friend of mine. Isn’t picking baby names fun?
PS – (for your dad) when my mom was pregnant with one of my siblings my dad wanted to name her Bailey Elizabeth Lauren Christine Hall so her initials would spell BELCH. I personally was advocating the name Carnegie or Independence Hall 🙂 We didn’t use either name, but we had a lot of fun talking about them!
I always pick first names that I like and middle names are after a family member we want to honor. (I’ve always thought that a child’s first name should be “their own” so that they can create their own identity). My firstborn is Noah Winford (after his Grandpa) and my second is Jack Alexander (after his great-grandpa, who I am also named after).
Our kids are Rebecca Renee and Jacob Ryan. I knew a Becca, and I really liked the name. I also liked that Rebecca is a Biblical name. Renee was added because it rolls off the tongue pretty well. It also gave us R.R.R. as her initials. I had a fellow college class mate whose intials were R-cubed. Being a former math teacher, I loved the thought. We actually even have ‘Re’-cubed.
Both DH and I liked Jacob. Becca would have been Jacob Matthew if she were a boy to pull in Daddy’s name. However, by the time it came around to pick a boy’s name, I really liked Jacob Ryan. Jacob and Rebecca just go really well together – Jacob also being a Biblical name. I always think Jacob Ryan sounds like a baseball player’s name, but when he was delivered the doc said he looked like a football player!
Are you talking about Gone with the Wind and Scarlett?
I like the name! It was fairly easy with my first son. He was named after my husband and my husband’s uncle. With my toddler, we just went through the baby book until we could decide on a name. We also let my older son pick his little brother’s middle name. So, they are both named after the same uncle. One has his first name for a middle name and the other has his middle name for their middle name.