Baby Names, pt. I

We name everything around here.  Everything.  Examples:


kitchenaid stand mixer = Beulah
Ken's cars (sampling) = Victor, Thor, Orca
Cari's cars (sampling) = Jezebel, Tori
Vans = Baby Beluga ("Baby B"), Big Beluga ("Big B")
bottle opener = Kennebunk Mermaid


And, as I pointed out to a friend of mine currently attempting to come up with a name for her newest baby, for some reason, those names stick better than the names of my own children.  No matter how unique a name we come up with, I always forget who I'm trying to bellow at in a pinch.  Sometimes, the kids are perfectly happy to let me keep calling "Gabriel!", even though they know I'm clearly trying to get Joaquin's attention.  However, if I accidentally call any of the boys "Lotus", they're sure quick to correct me on that one.


We love naming things around here.  Ken and I spend many happy hours arguing over the name of each baby, while the kids throw out helpful suggestions like, "Luke Skywalker" or "Baby Little Foot" or "Mr. Butt Butt"*.  Hundreds of names are hauled out, considered, and ultimately discarded.  Other than the finish line, figuring out the baby's name is the best part of each pregnancy.


So I'm always fascinated by people who do not love the naming process in the same way I do.  Another friend of mine, who is also trying to figure out a name for her newest, is one of these people.  She has been agonizing over the baby's name- or at least she has been.  I haven't heard much about it in a while, but I suspect that's because my constant insistence that "Coyote Monsoon" would make a really great name has finally gotten irritating.


It's gotten me thinking about how we arrived at the names we did.  A process we've emerged from, emotionally unscarred, six times now.  I love baby name stories.  If I had been a boy, my name would have been Jason.  I can't remember what Ken's name would have been if he'd been a girl, but I do know that my mother-in-law was planning on naming him "Carl", but my father-in-law wrote "Kenneth" on the birth certificate instead.  It's so interesting to me, the names we'd almost been given, and the circumstances surrounding the choice.

Boy Choice:  Ewan Michael
Girl Choice:  Isabella Lotus
Ken and I agreed on the boy's name fairly quickly.  "Michael" was after Ken's cousin, who had drowned when Ken was in high school.  And Star Wars was in the theaters, so Ewan McGregor had suddenly made that exotic sounding name seem like something we could pull off.  I thought it was awesome- when I told the seventh graders I was teaching at the time, they disagreed, however.  They informed me that the name sounded exactly like "Urine" and the child would be a social misfit from the moment it was cast out of my womb.
God, I love seventh graders.
The girl's name was harder.  Every single name I came up with, Ken would reject without giving me the courtesy of pretending to consider it.  Did he ever come up with a suggestion?  Hell no.  He would just shoot down all mine.
Finally, we came across "Fiona", and thought it was ok.  We hadn't seen Shrek, but when I told my seventh graders, they all informed me that this was the name of the princess.  Unable to understand their unspoken subtext, I couldn't tell if this was a good thing or a bad thing.
For a while, Fiona it was.  And for the first and last time in our child naming adventures, Ken let me pick the middle name.  "Lotus".  It was beautiful.  It was exotic.  It was spiritual but not religious-y.  I loved it, and I knew even then that I would call the child by that name and no other, should I be gifted with a daughter.
And Ken fell for it.


While at dinner with friends of ours one night, they asked us what name we'd picked for the baby.  We told them the boy choice, to which the husband kept a politely neutral face, but the wife burst out laughing.  I think she told me it sounded like "urine".  
(yes Heather, I'm talking about you.)
Then we told them "Fiona Lotus" for the girl's name.  Then I looked at Ken, and he looked at me, and I said, "I don't really love that name, do you?"  and he shrugged and made a vaguely pained face and replied, "Not really."  So I said, "Then why are we using it?"  and he shrugged.
So back to the drawing board.  Which was a book full of painfully hipster names, along with a ranking system that included terms like, "Peanut butter sandwhich" for "eh" names, "pocket T" for names that were classic and went with anything, like a pocket T-shirt, and "Little Princess/Teddy Bear" for names that would soon become obviously dated.
Yeah, I know.  We threw the book out eventually.
I was merciless.  Every night, I'd torment Ken for a good hour, starting with the As and working my way through, reading every suggestion of "Parker", "Dar" and "Markin" with a perfectly straight face.
And then I got to the Is, read "Isabella", and Ken snapped out of his name-induced coma to comment.
"That's not bad."  He said.  "That's not bad" is pretty much the most enthusiastic response he's ever given about a baby name, so I took it and ran.


Not that it matters.  I've been calling her Lotus all her life.

Boy Choice: Joaquin Orion
Girl Choice:  Eleanor Orion
Three years later, we got to do it again.  We were in the midst of moving from Michigan to Mississippi, and were occupied with that for a while.  By the time the dust had settled, and we could get to slugging it out over names, Ken had already picked out the boy's name.  
Only he wouldn't tell me what it was.
Nope.  Wouldn't tell me.  He said I could have veto power, but he wasn't going to tell me until the baby was born.
Ha.  That didn't last long.
Now, I'd like to say that the choice was motivated by a deep level of piousness on our part, and so the Spanish spelling of Our Lady's father's name was a way of expressing that, but I'd be lying.
1.  We weren't Catholic yet.  In fact, other than a vague annoyance at Southerners' insistence on making their religion so public, we weren't even giving religion a single thought at this point.
2. Once again, it was movie-motivated.  Ladder 49 had just come out on video, and Ken saw a poster for it.  He thought the name looked interesting, then happened across an interview with Joaquin Phoenix, and was able to put phonetic sounds to the strange jumble of consonants.
Ken finally told me, I liked it, and the boy's first name was settled.


The girl's name came from the sign off a dentist's office down the road from us.  Not kidding.  We drove by it one day, I said, "Hey, what about Eleanor?"  and Ken said, "It's not bad".
So Eleanor it was.


The middle name, which would have been the same regardless of the baby's sex, was a gift from the Universe.  We were, as I mentioned, in the middle of a move.  Ken had left a few months earlier, leaving me alone with a 2 year old, and a house to sell.  When we finally got all the loose ends dealt with, it was Thanksgiving.  Lotus and I boarded a plane, flew down to our new home, had Thanksgiving dinner, and then I flew back to Michigan alone.  From there, I drove my car and the last of our belongings the 12 hours to Mississippi.Just me, the tiny baby hitching a ride in my uterus, and the song "Yellow" that was on aggressively heavy rotation on every single radio station in the country. 


I sang out loud to the baby, urging him/her to "look at the stars/ see how they shine for you/ and all the things that you do" and I got very emotional and maternal while doing so.
Every time that song came on, I'd pass a semi truck with the word "Star" written in blue, and I would think this a very momentous event.  Particularly since it happened at least half a dozen times during that trip.  Frequency only proves that it's mystical, right?


So when the time came to decide on a middle name, I told Ken that it was out of our hands- the Universe had already decided that this baby was going to have the middle name of "Star".
Ken, still nursing the wounds of a daughter publicly called "Lotus", said no.  But he said, "What about Orion?  It's a constellation, so it's starry, and it references our song."
Well I was done.  What woman wouldn't be?  How romantic is that, to have your husband come up with a middle name that fits your whacked out semi truck/Coldplay hallucination AND manages to tie in the song you'd considered "yours" for over a decade?


Side note:  for a good week or so after the baby was born, my dad walked around thinking we'd named him "Joaquin O'Ryan", and couldn't figure out where in the family tree we'd found that bit of Irish nonsense.

Boy Choice:  Gabriel Vincent
Girl Choice: Veronica Rosemary
Ahhh....the first time "Veronica Rosemary" made its hopeful debut.   
By this time, we'd converted, and found it a very lovely and practical practice to name your children after a saint.  Lovely, because there are a lot of saints out there, and some of them have pretty kick ass names (Urban, Clementine, and Declan all being examples that have been hopefully submitted for Ken's approval.  They are also examples of names that have been thoroughly dismissed by Ken).  Practical, because like the living family member who now feels obligated to send at least a card and ten bucks each Christmas because you named little Francis after him, it is the hope that the saints will pray for those named after them.  


Some, like Sts. Michael and Catherine, must be tremendously busy, so it's just smart to go for a lesser-known saint, who will have more time on his hands for intercessory prayer.
Imagine our pleasant surprise when we learned that we lucked out on the previous two names, and could now trust that Sts. Isabella and Joachim were praying up a storm for our children (though I'm always a bit irritated to see that Isabella has made the top ten baby name list for years and years running.  Come on, people!  Stop hogging the prayers!).


But now we had a theme going.  Somehow, horribly, we painted ourselves into a corner and had to deal with it.  Veronica met the dual criteria of "unusual yet accessable" and "saint", but a boy's name was proving more difficult.
Half-heartedly, I threw out the suggestion of "Gabriel".  I'd suggested it for every baby so far, and Ken had shot it down for his own obscure reasons.  But this time, he paused.
I suspect that, once again, it had more to do with a movie (we'd just bought The Patriot, and Heath Ledger's Gabriel Martin must have left a favorable impression on my beloved), and less to do with pious sentiments, but who cares?  First names were agreed upon!


Middle names are always easier.  After all, with the sole exception of our first born, we didn't really plan on using them unless the kid was in hot water.  "Rosemary" seemed like a nice nod to Our Lady, and was ok with me, though I'd been hoping that Ken would let my first choice of "Easter" pass.
For the boy, I tried out a name I'd also trotted out on the two previous occasions.  "Vincent" was a nice name, with equal parts holy (think St. Vincent de Paul) and creepy (the episode of the Muppet Show with Vincent Price was a defining moment in my childhood).  
Ken never got on board, though, claiming that the initials "V.D." would instantly mark the child for a lifetime of taunting.  I think it was nothing but name fatigue that allowed "G.V.D." to pass.


So there you are.  The stories behind the first three.  Later on, when I've done enough productive work to make it appear like I was doing it all day, I'll do the rest.

*all actual name suggestions from the kids