What's in a name?

I recently saw a cute post by a friend of mine about how she named her children.  I love this idea!  My kids love to hear about what they were "almost" named. and then they usually laugh and say, "I'm so glad you didn't name me that!" So here are their stories.

 

Emily Angell

 

It is a tradition in my family that girls do not have middle names.  I love not having a middle name.  It made me unique growing up and now I get to use my maiden name as my middle name.  So we knew right away Emily wouldn't have a middle name.  Pretty early on we knew her name would be Emily or Sara.  I like plain, traditional names.  nothing too out there.  A few weeks before she was born, our good friends in our ward, had a baby girl and named her Brooke.  Ryan and I looked at each other and said, "Brooke!  I love that name!"  But we thought it would be way too lame to copy friends, with our babies just a few weeks apart.  Looking back, I think, who cares!!  They ended up moving a few months later and we've never kept in touch.  So we kept Brooke on the list for the next daughter.  (who never came!)  and went back to Emily or Sara.  We knew right away, after looking at her when she was first born that she was an Emily.  and I still love her name!  Years later, when I was expecting our third baby, we told the kids that if the baby was a girl, her name would be Brooke.  Emily said, "well I'd rather have a brother, than a sister named Brooke."  and her wish came true!  She hated the name Brooke so I guess she was meant to be Emily.

 

 

 

Trenton Ryan Angell

 

With Trent, we knew the middle name would be Ryan.  That was the easy part.  We both loved Justin.  We went with that for all of the pregnancy and as soon as he was born, we told everyone his name was Justin.  It was too easy.  But we'd always been saying, Justin Ryan Angell.  sounds so nice.  Then when Trent was 2 days old, my mom said, Justin Angell!  He really is JUST AN ANGELL!  and I knew right away we'd have to change the name.  when you take away the middle name, it was horrible.  There are actually a plethora of names that won't go with Angell.  Owen, Charlie, John to name a few!  So we had a 2 day old baby, it was almost time to go home from the hospital and we had no name.  We got it down to Trenton or Zachary.  Ryan said he loved them both and I should choose.  I love one syllable boys names because they sound more masculine and strong.  But I was afraid Zach was almost too strong, too bad boy-ish.  I wanted Trent, not Trenton,  just a one syllable name, but Ryan preferred Trenton.  We compromised with the agreement that his name would be Trenton (looks formal for awards, graduations etc)  but he would always go by Trent.  Too bad that by the time Trent was five he decided he wanted to go by Trenton and now he is mostly Trenton.  oh well. 

 

 

 

Jacob Matthew Angell

 

Ryan loved the name Matthew and wanted it for the first name.  But I thought it would be too confusing with my brother, Matthew, so we used it for a middle name.  We narrowed it down to Jacob or Eric.  I loved both the same, so let Ryan pick the name, since he had let me pick Trent's name.  He was at home watching Emily and Trent while I was in the hospital on the second day.  He called me and said he had decided on Eric.  I said great! Little baby Eric lasted for about 20 minutes, when Ryan called back and said, "wait!  I changed my mind. let's go with Jacob."  Again, with the understanding that he would be Jake because I like one syllable names!!  and guess what happened?  Yup!  Jacob tells everyone that he prefers Jacob!!