What's in a name?

It's 9:20 in the morning and I've been up for almost three and a half hours. Eric just went to work and I was sitting on the couch watching the girls and realizing they're mine again almost exclusively for three months. After which Eric gets a three day break and then jumps back in, though in a better position. He'll be in charge of the three to four person team instead of being the second-in-command and having to do a bulk of the teaching and paperwork.

So ClaireBeth and Ziggy are playing LiteBrite at the table and Vee is taking turns playing with the cash register and calling and looking for Daddy. Since the girls are working with letters, I was working with Ziggy on her name. Sometimes it will just strike me that my child's name is what it is. Then I just wonder at the name and the sounds in it and what other people think of it and whether or not it matches that child. Some people are so casual about the names they give their children. So as I was sounding out Ziggy's name with her I just started thinking about Ziggy and what she's like and how she'll grow up, and also whether her name will still fit her then. Her full name is Zoe Isabel. I knew at the time that Zoe was starting to become more popular, but I didn't expect it to explode around the time she was born. It was also the name we came closest to agreeing to. I always thought it sounded too cute and childish for a grown-up, kind of like Haylie and Makayla, and rather like Jessica to be honest. Isabel is because Eric wanted an I so we could call her Ziggy and I wanted something that shows God is present in her life, even if it is over used and disgustingly trendy. At least it's not Isabella or Emma. Not enough people look up the meanings of names before they bestow them. I also wanted something that we could use with her first name like we do ClaireBeth. So we ended up with Zoe (life ) and Isabel (set apart for God) who is called ZoeBel, Ziggy, Zozo and Brat when she is in trouble. Claire Elizabeth is clarity or brilliance like a diamond and Elizabeth is the same as Isabel. Or rather Isabel is the same as Elizabeth. We ended up with those rather by accident, though it is one of the reasons I initially objected, plus I was still trying for Jane. I really wanted Lucy Jane, but that obviously didn't happen.

So then comes baby number three. For ClaireBeth, the boy name was Kenneth Andrew or Andrew (brave, courageous) Kenneth (handsome) and we were going to call him Drew. Kenneth is Eric's grandpa and both of my grandfather's had Anderson as part of their name. My side already has Andy for that very reason so we were going to go back a step with Andrew. With Zoe and Vee we decided with number three that the boy first name was William (determined guardian) and we were going to call him Liam, though Eric was still trying for Williem because that's how they spell it in whatever country the first person in Eric's family that came to America came from. For a middle name I was trying for Timothy (honoring God) and Eric wanted Kennett (a derivative of Kenneth), since by that time I refused to use a family name given to someone I had met. It's not my fault someone 75 years ago had liked the name, no matter how much I love the person. Obviously it became a moot point. We went about finding Veronica much the same way we found Zoe, we used different colored high-lighters in the book and found which ones overlapped. I really wanted Nora but Eric likens it to Gertrude and Bertha. Don't ask, I have no clue. Lizette was one of two options, the other being Elise, since I figured we might as well give this one the same middle name as the last two. That and there were no other God-names, as it were, that sounded decent anyway. Then Eric spelled it wrong so they would all have Zs in them, not that many people have even heard of it anyway.

This isn't what I really planned on blogging about, and a lot of you have heard this before, but maybe its just an admonition to really think about your children's names before you actually give them to them. You could end up with Jessica (rich or God beholds-which is why it's much better than Jennifer-white wave-ick) Renae (rebirth) or Eric Wayne-king of the wagon makers!