Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Names

That's right, I'm seeking out ideas for names.  While I think that we have a "boy" name about 80% picked out, I'm still looking for boy names.  For some reason I just can't settle on any one name to be the "one".  Not sure why.

With Jaycee, I knew that if I ever had a girl I wanted that name since college. I also have really been putting a lot into meanings.  That is important to me.  Jaycee when I first looked it up online meant hope.  Later, I found a book with that name and spelling too and it meant vivacious and full of life.  I would say that suits our little Jaycee pretty well.  When we found out we were having her, I was so grateful that God was filling that emptiness we felt from losing Caden.  I started to understand what real "Joy" meant.  It wasn't about things and being happy all the time, but in finding the "good" things God will do with and bring to our lives despite our suffering.  That is such a hard lesson to learn, but an important one for me. 

At the time, I had come through a lot of little losses along with losing Caden that my spirit couldn't bare anything else.  I was in such a state of depression that I just wanted to go through the motions of life, but not really live it.  There was a day that I remember so clearly God holding my hand and telling me that my plans for myself are not what He wants for me and that He wanted me to gain a much richer and deeper understanding of Him and my faith.  It was then that He somehow gave me the courage to surrender my plans and to look for and listen to His plans.  That brought me to an amazing place of peace that I had never experienced before.  It was pretty cool!!!

About a month later, I went in for my yearly check up and found out that I was in fact pregnant with Jaycee.  You can imagine my surprise!!!  I knew that God was preparing me to be in complete peace with my life and my plans and to surrender to His plans to be able to go through another pregnancy, knowing that there are no guarantees it would turn out how I wanted it to.

I say all this to say that naming Jaycee was important to me.  Her name had to mean something to us and needed to be a symbol of what our family to that point had been through.  That is why I was so glad to find it meant hope, but later, after she was over a year old I found that it meant vivacious.  Both of those meanings suited her quite well.

So now that we're having another boy, I still find myself looking for the meanings of different names that I hear.  For some reason that means a lot to me.  I also wanted to do something to honor Tom's dad who passed away in December.  I haven't quite figured that one out.  With Tom's dad, he didn't have a lot of closeness with our family, he did try in the end to be better.  That is all we can strive for in life to be better than we were before.  I find myself putting a lot of thought into naming this baby and maybe that is why I'm not quite settled on a name yet.  I do know that I want his teacher's to be able to pronounce it (ask me about that sometime), and I want it to be a little different (not so ordinary that he has several kids in his class with the same name). 

So, I'm seeking a little help here.  If you think you have a fun name that I might like or even if you don't think I'd like it, let me know.  Leave a comment or send me an email.  I'd love to hear what you come up with.

I will leave you with some of Jaycee's choices for names for the little guy.  Her top 3 choices are: McCredible, Mommy, Charlie Brown.  Pretty sure she isn't getting the final say!!!


the Ehrlich's

2 comments:

Amy said...

I kind of love McCredible. :) Can't wait to hear what you come up with! We never could agree on a boy name with Gretchen. Good thing she was a girl! :)

Anonymous said...

Thinking about and learning about names is so interesting to me. Thank you for your post.

I was thinking about what you wrote about honoring someone. It sounded like perhaps you want to honor this person but maybe not use his exact name. I was thinking about meanings that reflect how you said his relationship to your family changed. What about looking up names with meanings related to this, such as: learn, grow, change, develop, progress?

On this site:
http://www.babynamestats.com/
it gave "Heath" as having the meaning "grow," as in "Untended land where flowering shrubs grow." I don't know if you would like that name for a first or middle, but it is kind of unique. Good luck with the process!