Name Game

I've been tagged! Chel from Happiness is Everything blogged about where her kids names come from and why she chose those names. I got thinking that it really is a neat thing to record, or blog about. So even if your not interested, here goes:

My DH was named after his grandfather Carl Alexander (first and middle name... same grandpa) and an uncle. He wished that he had his "own" original name. So, when we were expecting our first we decided that when naming our children we would give them a first name (with no ties to family) and a middle name linking them to a family member.

With our first child we found out we were expecting a boy. We wanted a name that was manly. A name that couldn't be used for a girl. We actually found the name in a baby name book. I was kind of joking around when I first read it aloud. Over the next few months as we bounced names around we finally came back to the name Stockton. It's very boyish and besides the Utah Jazz was playing well that year. So, our little 5 lb 15 oz. boy, born during the 1997 NBA playoffs was named STOCKTON CARL! Okay, Carl comes from his dad's name but I think a lot of people really thought that it was Karl Malone. That is stupid because we don't really even like Karl Malone. To set the record straight.... We didn't really name him after the Jazz player, John Stockton, it was a coincidence that they were playing well that year. In fact, I told myself that by the time our little boy was old enought to know anything, John Stockton would be retired anyway. When people ask if he was named after John Stockton we look at them dumb and say "No, then we would have named him John!"

I've wondered how much a name shapes a person. Or, as someone mentioned earlier, maybe names really are inspired. Our Stockton is quite tall, outgoing, and he loves sports. Who knew that my smallest baby would be my biggest kid?

Our second little boy came along two years later. We had talked about names and narrowed it down to two, Logan & Hunter. However, right there at the end, I thought we had decided on Logan. Logan is where Carl & I met. Logan is easy to spell. Logan is manly. A week or two before baby was born I went scrapbooking with a friend. We were both expecting babies and she suggested that I make some scrapbook pages with his name, announcing the birth and stuff and then I could just insert his picture later. So I made several scrapbook pages announcing the arrival of "Logan". Wrong. While I was in the hospital, a couple hours after the birth, DH filled out the Social Security name sheet and turned it in. HE chose HUNTER! What I couldn't believe it. I didn't want to fight about it so I just let it go. Then when I got home from the hospital it really started to bother me. So we decided to compromise and change his name to something else (I'm not going to even get into it). We called him this other name for two weeks but I didn't love it and neither did DH. Finally, when baby was two weeks old the Social Security card came in the mail and it said HUNTER MARTIN! I threw my hands up in the air and decided at least one of us should love the name so we went back to calling him Hunter. Besides it is manly and easy to spell. Martin is the name of my youngest brother, he is full of life and lots of fun. Interestingly enough, so is my Hunter.

Baby #3 was a long time coming. During that time, I was working in the Playroom at Gold's Gym. I helped "supervise" children while their parents were working out. It was a good job for me because I could take my boys with me. There weren't very many kids that I became attached to but one little baby boy, Crew, was so sweet and happy. I loved it when Crew came. I loved the name from the get go. I decided then and there that if I ever had another boy I would name him Crew. Finally, a year or two later I was expecting. We decided not to find out the gender. However, after the last baby naming fiasco, I was determined to have the name set in stone before arriving at the hospital. DH didn't try to sway me this time. I got to choose! If it was a girl we would name here CARA and if it was a boy.... CREW!

The gender of our baby was announced as an afterthought, as the medical "crew" had other things on their minds. .... like resusitating my child. About 5 minutes after the emergency c-section, one of the surgeons said, "Did anyone tell you that its a boy?" "You have a beautiful baby boy... he is very sick" he said. It was not the way I expected. It was hard but that is a story for another post.
So, CREW XANDER joined our family. Xander comes from his dad's middle name ALEXANDER! We call him CrewXander a lot of the time... and we call him "Crewser" and the "Crewman" and sometimes we just call him Xander. But CREW it is! Crew is the sweetest little one ... he is cuddly... he is happy... he is perfect!