Name Game

Juliet asked the famous question, "What's in a name," while pondering the idea of falling into love (lust according to the hubby) with a person who is supposed to be her enemy. She goes on to make a good point that a name really shouldn't mean anything, but I am sure that many parents would desperately disagree with her. Everyone has a story about how their parents came to name them. Some are simple or humorous, and others are painful. Soon to be parents spend so much time agonizing, sizing up, and comparing names. One wrong step could curse your poor child to a life a teasing, and another might help your child acquire certain dispositions. We ended up picking a rather unique but hopefully good name for our son so I figured it would be nice to archive the path to picking it.

Once you find out the gender of your child, I discovered the next question asked is usually about potential names. When I am able to respond with one name right away, several people have seemed surprised that by 4 months we had already picked out an official name. Having been together for quite some time prior to marriage and then several years hoping for this pregnancy, it was inevitable that we would spend some time playing around with potential names for our unborn child. Our name for a girl was actually picked out three years ago, and I came up with our prospective son's name about a year ago. Since we had a certain name thief in my family already steal one of our girl names, we kept the boy's name relatively quiet until it was official we were having a boy.

The actual creation of the name combination was something that happened fairly easily through a comic character discuss Brett and I happened to be having in the car one day (yes, I realize the level of geekiness this gives two 30-something people), but the road to that point and the selection actually was rather rocky believe it or not. As much as I love my mother, one of things I fault her in is naming me. I love that she gave me a ancestral family name, and I am happy to say I share names with some of my favorite women in history and literature. However, I wish she had done research about them prior to actually dubbing me with them. Since both my first and middle names were in the top 10 girls names for most of the 80's (first name is still in the top 10 now), I went to school with many with the same name, and I often got confused with others. Luckily, I had plenty of options for nicknames when I got tired of going by Elizabeth. Unfortunately, this point also had a bad side because it also gave easy target names to bullies and funky nicknames that I still deal with (Thank you Emma for Wizzy the Wallawator by the way). Needless to say, I have never been fond of my name, and in turn this has influenced my own picks in names.

Those who know Brett and I will know that one of the charms/difficulties of our relationship is our taste differences. We are famous for our bickering and doing things like taking four hours to pick our plates when we registered for the wedding. It took us two days before we were able to settle on Dante for a name for our poor dog.  It is reasonable to say that coming to a common decision isn't a strong suit in our relationship, and compromises are often fought over for hours, days, months, and possibly years. When we come up with something that is in complete agreement, it is magical and on a whole set into stone. When we started the name game, we each had our favorites and reasons for dispensing with the others. Mine for a girl were Katherine (his first love) and Isabella (lover of sparkly vampires) and for a boy Darcy (too girlie) and Edward (the ultimate sparkly vampire). His were Michael Anthony (80's teen star) and Alexander (my first love). We had a few fights before discarding and starting from scratch.  Since I was darn sure I only going to have a girl-oh, how times have changed, it was really easy for me to concentrate on names for girls, which is why we have had our girl's name so long. By chance, Brett did like my other favorite name for a girl, Evelyn, and since Evelyn was for my great-grandmother, we figured Louise would be appropriate and an honor since it was his great-grandmother's name who was still alive at the time. I really loved the name until the nickname Evie Lou was developed. Out of love I fell with it, and into the arms of the name Zoey I went. Brett happened to like that one as well so we debated both until stealing of the name happened. When my middle sister gave birth to my niece, she picked Zoey and proceeded to butcher the name by spelling Zoie. It was a bit of fate it seems because even though I came up with other name ideas, we kept going back to our first pick of Evelyn Louise.

Like I said before, names for boys weren't my strong suit because I swore that I was never having boys due to the fact that I had no idea what to do with them! Brett decided that he really wanted to use the name Ross if we had a son. Since there were already a Big and Little Ross (his uncle and brother) in the family, I agreed on the grounds that it would be a middle. It later became clear that Ross is a great first name, but it is problematic middle name due to the fact that it doesn't combine as well in the second position to create flow in a name. Though not his strength, Brett did come up with the name Xander Ross, and that stuck for some time. We also had Aiden Ross as a strong runner at one point. I also came up with the first name Spencer after looking through high school stuff and remembering a cool guy I was friends with. Spencer Ross had a nice ring, but we realized quickly that might create a sticky situation considering that it was my jerk of a bio dad's last name as well. We went over lists and lists of names to get some we liked but found nothing we loved.

I don't really remember how the conversation was brought up, but we were driving along  about this time last year when it turned to Batman talk. Brett has been an avid comic fan since boyhood, and Batman is his favorite. Since we started dating, I have grown to enjoy them as well, and it is something I like learning about due to his passion. I think I had some question based on my recent reading of All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder graphic novel by Frank Miller. I had enjoyed the introduction of the Robin backstory, but begin a fairly novice person at comic lore, I was curious since my major knowledge of Robin comes from my childhood love of the '60s Adam West Batman show. When Brett mentioned Robin's real name, Dick Grayson, Grayson got stuck in my brain and rolled round while we continued the conversation. It made an impression because when we were wrapping up, I mentioned liking it and testing it with Ross. Low and beyond, it worked, and Brett feel in love hook, line, and sinker. It was unique without being overtly weird. It referenced something we both enjoyed, and it had a hidden geekiness to it. It has significance to beginning of our relationship that has now turned into tradition-all my most important and coolest gifts to Brett have been Batman related starting with the first thing I ever gave him. Of course, our comic-loving friends got it immediately with a bit of a giggle and shouts of approval. When we found out it was a boy, the name was stuck as if it and our son were star-crossed lovers.

Our favorite director, Kevin Smith, recently talked about a conversation with his daughter, Harley Quinn, about being named for a comic book character. The conversation was hilarious and ironic because it started with her complaining about her dad's Batman shorts. Harley Quinn just happens to be a neurotic villainous  sidekick to Batman's greatest enemy, the Joker. While laughing heavily to this, I came to the realization that in 10 plus years we will probably have something similar with our son. Not sure what his intentional reaction will be to being named for a boy wonder sidekick who runs around in an interesting take on the Robin Hood costume, but hopefully after the first shock goes away, he will actually like it. We will probably have to mention the stuff about Nightwing in order for things to go down a bit smoother!