Name That Quad! – Part Deux
Your comments in the Part One post shows that every name has a story! Thanks for sharing your name origins with us – I’ve enjoyed these posts!
So last post I shared the HOW….now on to each individual name and story to go with it – the WHO! (I’ll be using some quotes from a sweet friend, Kathy, who created a handmade card for us shortly after the birth of our boys with their names, meanings, and a verse to compliment the meaning. I’m not sure what name book she used, so hopefully if she’s reading she’ll leave a comment revealing her source.)
Let me preface this by saying that Brad and I had a few Naming Rules. These were simply personal preferences. I am not in any way slamming your kids names if they fit into any of these criteria….=)
1. They couldn’t rhyme or be “sing-song cute”.
2. They needed to be non-trendy; Traditional, yet distinct.
3. They needed to be names that were complete in itself – not needing to be shortened to a nickname (This rule was obviously meant to be broken…keep reading!)
4. They (at least some of them) needed to have a family link.
5. They couldn’t rhyme with “Murray”….That eliminated furry, hurry, and Suri!
In Birth Order:
HENRY SAMUEL
Henry – A name we both agreed on and since Henry was only 2 lbs. 12 oz. “Isaac” just didn’t fit him!
Meaning: Trusted
Psalm 37:23 “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delights in his way.”
Samuel – We really liked the Biblical heritage of Samuel as well as the meaning of the name (Check out I Samuel Chapter 1)
Meaning: God heard
I Samuel 1:20 “Hannah gave birth to a son; and she named him Samuel, saying, “Because I have asked him of the Lord.”
Nicknames: H-Sam, Henry Dickory Dock, Hen, HEN-ERR-EEE (3 syllables like my TX Friend Pam says it), Heners, Show Boat, Small Fry, 2-12, Buddy
BROOKS LAYTON
Brooks – A name that we threw out there and then ended up falling in love with
Meaning: Refreshed
Zechariah 2:10 “Sing for joy and be glad O daughter of Zion; for behold I am coming and I will dwell in your midst.”
Layton – A family name on my mom’s side, but mostly chosen because we just liked it
Meaning: From the Meadow Land =)
Psalm 23:1-2 “The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.”
Nicknames: Brooksy, Brooks A Million, Little b, Brooksalufigus, Stinky (with all my affection), Buddy
Clark Thomas and Isaac Edward will be explained in detail tomorrow. It’s getting late and lengthy….On To Part 3 Tomorrow!
AND While You’re Waiting on Me to Return You can Discuss the Meaning of Your Name (or your baby(ies)) and Any Naming Rules You had/have for Your Kids!
I don’t think my mom had any criteria when picking our names. They say it was random, but my dad, brother and I all have the same initials, JDO and my mom’s is DJO. My given name with my maiden name means “white divine young warrior”.
My Pastor told me once to be careful what you name your child. He pointed out how God would change a name because of the meaning. He said the meaning is important because they become it. With this in mind I kept my ear to the ground for the next 8-9 years until my daughter was born. I have a friend name Joy who truly has become her name’s meaning. I decided to use Joy in my first daughter’s name, but needed something to go with it. Besides the meaning being important my one rule was to not use a family name. We ended up going with Kaitlyn Joy because it means “pure joy”. Kaitlyn was the first “pure” name that we liked that wasn’t a family name. After 3+ years of infertility and one round of IVF our Pure Joy was born.
Those are absolutely perfect pics of both boys! Really capture such personality! Kisses to them both!! TW
Well, with Gavin, we didn’t really have any criteria. We just both wanted to like the name we chose. We don’t do the you name the first, I’ll name the second, because I wanted him to like the name we named our child, and he has some off the wall names that he likes and I WILL NOT agree to! LOL I sort of just stumbled upon Gavin and we both loved it! Lane is Chad’s middle name, so that was easy. I wanted his middle name to be Chad, but he wouldn’t go for it, but reluctantly agreed to Lane. Now, he couldn’t be more proud that Gavin is named after him! Gavin means alert (boy does that fit him well) and hawk. It also means one of King Arthur’s Knights.
We were like you, and tried to find names that wouldn’t be shortened, or that we could live with any of the potential nicknames. Also, we ruled out names of any former boyfriends or girlfriends. 🙂
We broke the rule I would’ve had, if I’d known we were going to have several children…do NOT name them w/the same starting letter! 🙂 I didn’t want them to start w/a W since our last name is Williams… I also didn’t want them to have such common names since our last name is so common- although since that time I have heard of 10,000 Shelby’s…and I guess Sarah is common. My husband is so laid back and he doesn’t really get too excited over much, so he pretty much let me pick out the names, but he did put some input… Our first daughter we named Shelby and I liked Claire for a middle name. He said we couldn’t name her that because if she was chunky when she got older, which she isn’t, people might call her SHELBY E-CLAIRE. Only he would think of that-so we settled on Shelby Renee. 🙂
My parents went real original with mine & my brother’s:
Jason was Top Boy name #1 when he was born, Michael was Boy Name #2 (as well as my dad’s middle name).
Jennifer, girl name #1, Michelle girl name #2.
Jennifer seemed to be a common theme that year, right? I think there were 5 or 6 of is in the same class in 8th grade?
I had a very hard time with all of my kids names. I have three boys and a princess in the middle. We wanted names that you could not shorten. I hate nicknames. We settled on Dyllan Ryley, no we do not call him Dyll or dyll pickle. We do however some times call him Dyllan bobber, or Bob Dyllan or sometimes bob.
#2 Conner Logan we call him Logan sometimes
#3 Lexie Brianna pronounced Brionna. We knew that Alexis was too big of a name for her but Loved Lexie so that is what we named her. This child who is four would not tolerate having a nickname. I have tried calling her princess Lexie but it doesn’t bode well.
#4 Cameron Chase
No we dont call him Cam man. Maybe boo boo sometimes.
There ya have it. I am coming out of lurk dome.
Cute! Love their names. My first born’s name is Cassandra.The meaning of this name(Deceiver of men)was in NO WAY part of why we chose it. My mother had a still-born(at 38 weeks) who was named Cassie.I was only 18 months when she was born but have always loved the name. We chose to do Cassandra and call her Cassie because I like LONG names that can be shortened!:)Marie is her middle name, which is my MIL’s middle name. #2 is Samantha Joy. Again, we call her Sammie or Sam. I loved the show “who’s the boss” and the daughter was named Sam on that show and I thought it was so cool!:) Her middle name is Joy because we tried for her for a while and were SO joyful to find out she was coming! My twins….Maxwell Joseph and Mitchell Caleb.And yes, we call them Max and Mitch!:)I have NO idea WHY we chose their names.We just liked them.Also, my Grandma thought she was SO funny when she said..”hey, if you switch the vowels,it’s mix and match!!!”(she’s SO clever!:)IT just made us like them more!:)Their middle names were just bible names we liked! THE END!!:)
I LOVE that you did this post! It’s so cute to hear how everyone came up with their names.
I did a blog entry on mine all about how I came to name my 9 kiddies.
http://bouffard11.blogspot.com/2008/03/march-13-2008-name-that-child-part-1.html
JEEEEEEEEennnnnnnnn!!
Am I GOING to the Seminar? Why, I’m running the book table! YAY! I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE YOU GUYS! SO fun!
What seminars did you sign up for? Please tell me you are going to the one about raising big families! 🙂 I’m so stoked that you guys are coming down for it. PLEASE try to find me and I will do the same.
Love ya!
~Gret
I love the name Brooks! It’s my fave! The funniest thing, though, whenever I see your kids’ names, I worked with a Clark and a Brooks (girl, it’s actually her grandfather’s name!), and they are getting married! This girl had a huge crush on my hubby while we were dating, so I set her up with Clark!!! So yeah, I always think it’s crazy…if I didn’t know her, I would totally name our next son Brooks!
But anyways, our daughter’s name is Brynn Caelin, which Brynn is an old Celtic name meaning ‘Hill’ and Caelin is actually Gaelic for “Nicholas”….here’s where the weird part is-she isn’t my husband’s biologically daughter. I didn’t meet him until she was 18 months old…and my husband’s name?? Nick!!
Our son’s name is boring…Nicholas Patrick, his middle name after my dad who only had 3 daughters! But I’m like you, I like traditional, non-trendy names!
Our kiddos all have first names that we both love, paired with family middle names. We don’t really have any “rules”… just that we both have to agree. 🙂 And a family mn is a must for me.
Brenna Lu… Brenna is just a name that we loved and seemed to fit her. Lu is a four generation first-daughter middle name.
Joshua Brian… Joshua was supposed to be named Braden, but my husband’s brother passed away just before Joshy was born. We both felt strongly that our son should be named after his Uncle Brian. Joshua was a name I’d loved since childhood, after Joshua in the Old Testament. (I loved the story of Moses.)
Madalyn Elaine… Madalyn we loved, Elaine was after Rick’s younger sister.
Braden Andrew… Braden was a name we chose while we were engaged. Andrew is my husband’s middle name.
This next little boy will most likely be named Asher William, though we’re still tossing ideas around. I love the name Asher! William is after my dad.
Melissa 🙂
http://www.withasmile.wordpress.com
I’m really curious about what names you did a pre-emptive veto on because of your experience as a Speech Therapist! I dont’ have any kids but definitely will keep that in my back pocket for the future. 🙂
My oldest dd- 1st name is one we just liked.
her middle name had to be my mom’s name, Marie.
My 2nd dd- 1st name Brookelyn. Brooke is a feminine form of Brock, by brother’s name.
Middle name Nicole after a dear friend who was the 1st major answer to prayer in my life. (she was adopted and we prayed for her by name)
Ds- Nathan means “gift from God”. After 4 miscarraiges, that’s what he truly felt like to us. We never considered another name for him.
Middle name is dh’s middle name…Edward.
Love this post! Can’t wait to hear about Clark and Isaac.
We have three kiddos. Our 11 year old daughter is Grace Elizabeth. I decided at age 13 that I would name my daughter Grace Elizabeth which was my great-grandmother’s full name. Of course, my husband took some convincing. He thought it was an “old lady name.” When she was little we called her “Graciebeth” now she just likes to be called Gracie. I know that someday she’ll be a very classy woman named Grace!
Our almost 10 year old son’s name is Ethan Fowler. In high school I fell in love with the name Ethan after reading Ethan Frome (I stress, I fell in love with the NAME not the character!). My husband’s biological father died when he was very young and he was adopted by his mom’s second husband. Hubby’s birthname was Mark Fowler. Out of respect to his biological father (as well as living aunts, uncles and grandmother) we gave him Fowler as a middle name. Nick names are Eath and Fred.
Our youngest is Genna Beverly. (pronounced Jenna NOT Gina!) I have a great aunt named Genna Vie and I always loved the sound of that. Plus, my grandfather’s name was Gene. I think of Genna as a feminine version of that. Grandma’s name is Bev and she is my favorite lady in the world! She was and is THRILLEd to have a great-grandchild named for her. Nicknames are Genna Bev, Genna Benna, Genna B, Gigi, Peanut and POKE because she is sooooooooo slow!
My son’s name is Connor Ryan. Connor is an irish name which my husband is. Ryan is my husbands middle name. Plus, we both really liked Connor Ryan for a boy. We never wanted to do that thing some couple’s do by naming the first son after his dad. THat is when you get nicknames and weirdness in my book
Ok,
sorry for being a lame ass but…
if you have answered this question before sorry. Are any of the boys identical and if so who?
i’m running a bit late on commenting about names but i thought i would anyway.
before my husband and i even got married he said he had his have his first son named Logan Christopher. he has wanted that all his life.
Well 3 months after we got married I got pregnant and so the name process began. We went through baby name books and i finally told him that we couldn’t do logan. It’s just one of those names that has a bad person with it and i just hate when that happens. a perfectly good name and then you know someone that just ruins it. TERRIbLE!!!
we worked and worked on names. everyname i came up with my husband thought of something wrong with it. Then I said the name Jack one day and my husband said yes!!!!!!! I wrote it down. I made him promis that we weren’t changing and to make him not change, i todl everyone that was the name. hahah.
so we have JACK MATTHEW!!!!
we never could agree on a girls name so thank goodness it was a boy. we had Megan and Lily picked out. We are really all about names that don’t nickname. So Jack instead of Jackson.
sorry so long…hahah.
i loved reading all about your children’s names!!
lindsay
p.s. lindsay renee and Christopher Matthew are our names….
I love the name stories! I know some people hate it, but since my husband and I (and all 7 of our siblings) start with a J we wanted our children to also. Then we wanted middle names to be after family members. Justin Wayne is 13 (Wayne is my FIL), Jordan Monroe is 12 (Hubby and I both had ggrandfathers named Monroe), Jillian Frances is almost 7 (Frances is my grandmother), and Jonathan James is 4 (James is hubby’s brother). Unfortuntely, we can’t have any more kids because we’ve used all the ‘J’ names :).
Janice
I usally just read, but this is my fav topic.
I had my daughters name picked out in the first ten minutes after I found out I was pregnant.Her name is Francesca Melissa, we call her Frankie. She is named after my gramma Maria Francesca and my cousin Melissa.
We then had eight years of infertilty and lots of names over the years. We ended up naming our son Matteo Agostino. We decided to stick with the italian theme. Matteo I just always liked and Middle after husbands grandfather.
I think we will stick with the italian theme if we have any more. My parents went so trendy with me.
Brandee Lee Breen (maiden name). People always commented on it.Kinda dorky.