The Name Game

So I've been tagged. How did my crazies get their names? I wish I had really cool stories about my kids names. We liked them. That was it. The biggest argument of our marriage is over kids names. If we can agree, it's good enough. I'm not the kind of person who can refer to a child by name while still in utero. I have to see a child before I can settle on a name. My kids names were never set in stone until it's time to leave the hospital. I luckily don't care about the meaning of names. For me, they don't really have any bearing on personality. My name, for instance, means 'pure'. Right. And my kids have some doozies. I'll include them for fun.


Parker Braden:
Parker: park keeper
Braden: broad, wide

With Parker, I didn't find out if we were having a boy or a girl. But both of us were so sure it was a boy that Spencer said if it was a girl, I could name her. We put all our efforts into boys names. It was then that we found out what a disagreement this would be for us. I wanted Garrett. Spencer wanted Christian. We explored the option of family names but again, we couldn't agree. My great-grandfathers middle name was Park, which led me to Parker, but I wouldn't consider him named after my great grandpa Stowell. We were pretty set on Parker about a month or two before he was born. But a middle name continued the arguments. We really liked Reid, but decided we liked it too much to waste on a middle name. Spencer loves the name Braden. I finally agreed on checkout day at the hospital.



Reid Callin:
Reid: red-haired, red
Callin: dove, slender

This was our hardest for sure. You'd think it would have been easy since we didn't use Reid for Parker's middle name for that very purpose. We had a friend in college named Reid who was about the coolest guy there ever was. He had a great fashion sense. He was nice to everyone, even the geeks, despite how cool he was. He told great stories and he was ever entertaining. He really shaped the way I viewed the name Reid. But I started to really like the name Gavin. We vacillated between Reid and Gavin clear up until it was time to leave the hospital. We couldn't call him anything for a couple of days. Reid finally became the front runner, and then we fought over the spelling. Spencer won. I planned to spell it Reed. So the obvious choice was to use Gavin for the middle name. We planned on it (either Reid Gavin or Gavin Reid). Then in the hospital I decided I liked it too much. We should save Gavin in case we have another boy. I worked with a kid named Callin (but spelled differently) back when I worked for the school district. He was a top notch kid. I liked the name. Again, I wish I would have saved it for a first. I love it.



Grayden Clark:
Grayden: gray-haired, pleasant
Clark: man of learning, clerk

Again, you'd think we should just use Gavin. That's what we saved it for, right? It never seemed to fit for me this time. Spencer refused to discuss baby names this time around. It was within a week of his birth that we came up with Grayden. Both Grady and Grayson were on our list of names we liked. And Spencer always complains that we used Braden for a middle name. He loves it. So about a week before he was due, we were watching none other than Thoroughly Modern Millie with the dashing Trevor Graydon. We heard Graydon and it just clicked. It combines all the other names we like. We still can't decide if we should call him Gray or Grady. We call him both. I wanted to spell it with an 'o.' Spencer convinced me that it looks too much like a last name and he won on spelling again. Clark comes from Dr. Seuss. I think it was the day before I was scheduled to be induced. We were reading Dr. Seuss and the line was, "Look what we found in the park in the dark. We will take him home. We will call him Clark." We looked at each other and immediately knew. It was perfect. Besides that, the young men in our ward always liked to point out that our kids had superhero names (Peter Parker - Spiderman and Reid Richards - Mr. Fantastic). Clark just fit...Superman. We seriously weren't set on naming our kids after superheros, but it's funny it turned out that way. Although this name took us the longest to come up with, it was the first time we went into delivery fairly certain on what we would name the kid. I second guessed myself with this name for probably a whole month after we named him. A lot of people didn't like it. And people always make us repeat ourselves when we say it. It seemed fairly normal to me. Similar to Braden, Hayden, Aiden and I even know a Rayden. Grayden just didn't seem that different. Someone even asked if we were from Utah because Utah people always pick weird names. Regardless, I'm happy with it.

Our boys all have last names for firsts. They sound like a law firm..."From the law offices of Parker, Reid & Grayden." Three boys in a row got a little rough. We were seriously running out of things to agree on. And neither of us have ever convinced the other to use Garrett or Christian. We'll see what the future has in store.

I know a lot of stories behind my friend's kids names. But not everyone. I tag Autumn, Amanda, Jessica and Crystal.