What’s in a name…

On Monday, dear friends welcomed their second child.  The baby is perfection.  She entered the world gorgeous and perfect.  Until last night,however, this little angel was waiting for only one thing…a name.  The parents couldn’t finalize her name because they understood the huge responsibility in naming a child.

In a world where celebrities names get weirder with each child and aim to be as extravagant as possible, it is refreshing to know some people understand the impact of name on a child.

As a parent, I wanted my kids’ names to be unique but not over-the-top.  I wanted the names to mean something beyond the standard definition in every baby name book.  My obsession became thinking of names and my husband took the responsibility of thinking of the ways it could be twisted later in life.

For our first child, one thing was certain, the name would have Rae in it.  My grandpa was Ray, my mom and my middle names were Rae.  I loved Rae and even contemplated changing my name (no, I am not a fan of Tina) to Rae.   No matter what, Rae would be used.  Once we knew it was a girl, we quickly decided on Raya in memory of my grandpa who I adored.  We then decided to pay tribute with the middle name to my grandma, Monabelle who I also love dearly.  Just like that, Raya Belle had a name.  To this day, I love her name and often use both names when talking to her.  It is a unique name (I’ve only heard ever heard of one other Raya and she spelled it differently).  It is also a name with family, love and wonderful memories behind it.  To us, it is the perfect name.  Amazingly, Raya fits her name too.  She is a little ray of light and energy.

Naming our second was much harder.  We still wanted a special and unique name.  I felt with Raya we had created a precedent of naming our child after family.  I wanted to pay tribute to other family members since we value family so much.  We were, however, low on usable names that would work for a girl and wouldn’t inflict teasing later.  After all, we had Marjorie, Mabel, Lowell, Wanda, Dorothy, Henry, etc… to work with.  Years down the road, I didn’t want to give this child a name that didn’t mean something but also didn’t want her disliking her ancestors because of her name.   I wanted a name that made me smile and not feel guilty of child abuse.

We took forever.  Even though we had nine months, we did not finalize her name till the week she was born.  We decided on Jamesyn Lou.  We had always leaned toward using James.  It was my husband’s grandfather and they were best friends.  The Lou added a southern flare and came from Patrick’s grandmas Dorothy Louise and Wanda Lou who are two amazing women.  I feared her name would be a bit to boyish but we changed the typical spelling to a more feminine form.  We loved it and how it paid homage to three more wonderful family members who meant so much.  Her name would give her pride and wonderful stories.   As was the case with Raya’s name, Jamesyn’s name really fits her.  Like her name, she is a bit more tomboyish but with a really sweet and loving feminine side to her.

If we have any more little ones, our next name may take a bit more imagination to create.  For now, we love our little girls, Raya Belle and Jamesyn Lou and we love the role models they will always have in their life thanks to the histories of their name.

Behind every person is a story.  I would love to hear the story behind your name.

Raya Belle                                                   Jamesyn Lou

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