What’s In a Name???

With Lilly and Ryker, their names came so easily. We went over many names, but once we heard them and suggested them (Mike came up with Ryker, I came up with Lilly) we were like "yeah, that is perfect." When Collin came along, we made a list of names we liked. One of our top two contenders was actually Collin, which happened to be the name his birth mother wanted. So of course that worked perfectly. We like names that are easy enough to spell and pronounce, but we also like names that are not common. I have an excellent job that allows me to see and hear a lot of baby names and truly see how they fit & how common they really are!

It always makes me chuckle when patients come in with their silent Z's and other silent letters that grammatically are just not correct. I also am not a fan of unisex names. (I just want to add a disclaimer here: these are just my personal opinions and so please do not take offense if your kids names fall into any of these categories, everyone just has their

preferences!) I also like to mix a bit of family somewhere in the name. Lilly's middle name was Elizabeth, which happens to be my middle name and was also my Great-Grandma's middle name. Ryker's middle name was John, which is Mike's middle name. Collin's middle name is my dad's first name. But now going into our fourth child (a fact that freaks Mike out when I remind him!) there is a lot of pressure to find the right name. So, this is our list thus far:

 Our boy names are as followed:    

Adam, Patrick, Gavin, Caleb, Justin, Christopher Adam, Thomas, Benjamin, and Oliver. I love the name Oliver, (and we would nickname him Ollie) but we have really good friends that are having a little boy this summer and they are naming their little guy Oliver and I try to avoid using the same names!

 Girl Names:

Addison, Allison, Marissa, Kaitlyn Anne, Savannah, Kaylee, Sophia Anne (we would call her Sophie), Leah Anne, and Margaret Anne (we would call her Maggie!) I also love the name Hazel. If it is a girl, I would like her to have the middle name of Anne since it is my sister's middle name.

I know it seems silly, but we are those kind of people that name our children even before we know what we are having. The naming game truly is important business (and something I feel like I can have a little bit of control over in this situation where truly we do not have control of our outcome.) I also like Abby, Landon, Alexander, and Olivia, but some of our really close family and friends have those darling names taken. My Grandmother thinks we are having twins (I laughed and nearly cried when she made that suggestion because I am not someone who has ever wanted twins personally!) and I hope to disprove her next week with an ultrasound.

I know we will eventually find a fitting name, it may just take some chiseling down. I wish I could have a magic ball that told me if we were having a boy or girl, or to have the baby just tell us what he or she prefers. If only it were that easy.