What's in a name

Choosing a name for your child is one of the most important decisions you have to make; it's something you'll both live with for your entire lives! For me names carry so much with them- they carry generations, they carry meaning, they carry personality and character. For both my children I felt the need to find a name that meant something to us, not just a name that sounded nice. I also felt the need to make sure the name felt right, which meant not deciding on a name until the baby was born. We got a lot of surprised reactions to this as many people do choose a name before their baby is born (even before ultrasounds could reliably reveal gender, many couples would chose a "girl name" and a "boy name" before the arrival of their bundle of joy). Many people believed we just didn't want to share the chosen name ahead of time (a small part of the reason for holding off on naming was indeed because I was afraid of picking something and receiving gifts with the name on it, then wanting to change my mind later), but I think the fact that it took almost a full 24 hours to announce our second born's name proves that we really hadn't made up our mind beforehand!

As posted on Facebook on the day he was born:

Baby Boy Flood (aka Floodlet) arrived at 9:19 pm last night. 8 lb. 8 oz. 20 1/2 inches. Those waiting to "find out" the name... Trust me, we're not hiding anything. Still trying to decide. :) That was the main thing that freaked me out when I realized I was in labor!

This isn't to say we went in with no idea of what we wanted to name our child. With both Drew and James we had a list of names we liked (a little less solidified with James), but nothing decided.

Drew was named after both of his grandfathers. It felt difficult to give the second such a significant name.  We did know that we wanted the middle name to be Joseph. Jason's middle name is Joseph and so is his father's.

Among our other choices, in the end we decided on James. It was a name that had been suggested by my sister Laura and I fell in love with it immediately. My only issue with it was the meaning according to baby name dictionaries. I'm not even going to post it here because I decided that we make the meaning of a name whatever we want it to be. For us James was important for several reasons. First, naming him with a "J" meant he would have the same initials as his father; this felt like a nice way to make his name "significant" like his brother's. Second, it is a biblical name. I had searched for names meaning "blessing" or "gift from God" because I truly felt God answered many prayers during the pregnancy; unfortunately nothing seemed quite right, but I at least wanted a name that was in the Bible. James was also similar to my sister's middle name, Jane. If we'd had a girl the middle name likely would have been Laura. I tried to find a boy's name similar to Laura, but I did not like Lawrence. James and Jane are very close, so it felt like a nice way to include my sister's name (and her wonderful charm, personality, and smarts) into our newborn's name. Finally, silly as it is, James is a name from Harry Potter, a book Jason and I both love dearly and one of the few similar interests we shared in the beginning of our relationship. Altogether it seemed like a perfect fit.

It took us nearly 24 hours to decide on the name, but we are very happy with it and hope he will feel the same.

James Joseph
He takes after his aunt Laura not just in name but with
those chubby cheeks and the fact that in almost every
photo so far his eyes are closed!

Put your name in the hat!

So now that we know we are having another boy, it’s time to start thinking about names and nurseries. I have to admit that I feel a little stumped already. We went through this once and I feel like we picked all of our favorites the first time around and now I’ve got nothing. That’s not to say whatever we decide on will be “second best”, only that we need to discover something that we love just as much.

I actually had a dream fairly early on that we had a baby boy and I couldn’t remember his name. I was so upset running around trying to get other people to say it so I wouldn’t look stupid for forgetting my own child’s name. A lady at work told me my dream meant I was worrying about what to name the baby, and in fact she was probably right. Jason and I had both already wondered what we would do it the baby were a boy because we had a few ideas for girls names, but not-a-one for  a boy!

So I’m asking for suggestions! Give me some boy names, and tell me why you like those names.

I also need some nursery ideas. I have a few thoughts, but would love to know what you all have to suggest!