The Funny Thing About Names

Probably the first question we get...after "when are you due" and "boy or girl"...is "have you picked a name?" There's nothing wrong with the question. When talking about upcoming children, it's only logical conversation progression. (I'm sure there's some right-brain involvement there as well). The only hang-up is that Saharh and I are really unsure what we're going to name him. The reason for this is two-fold, involving some of Saharh's spontaneity and some preferences of my own.

I'll start with the reason why I prefer to wait until he's born. The story of how I got my name is rather lengthy but ultimately it wasn't decided until my first day in this world. I learned later that mom and dad already had some names picked out and the way I was born only finalized the decision. However, after hearing about that through my childhood and adulthood (using the term loosely of course:) ), I've always pictured naming our firstborn upon his arrival and no sooner. Does that mean we don't already have some possibilities? No. Does that mean we only have a couple possibilities? Ha! No. Which brings me to Saharh's portion of this story.

For those of you who know Saharh, this won't come as a surprise, but she's a bit unique. She's sort of an 'against-the-grain' sort of person. Usually when you show her what everyone else is doing, she wants to see what the unique and quiet minority is doing. She's doesn't always want to do what the smaller groups are doing, but she is certainly not a follow the crowd kind of person either. I like this about her, even though it drives me crazy. For example, it never even occurred to me to give the child more than one middle name. For Saharh, it never occurred to her to give him only one. For myself, I like the traditional spellings of each name we've thrown into the list. In her wild and imaginative mind, she likes to find alternate spellings. She'll write them out and analyze how the letters look. Two names are appraised on combination, based on whether or not the first of the two names ends with a consonant and the second of the two begins with a vowel. It's an incredibly analytical, left-brain process, even though it is governed by creative, right-brain freedom.

The end result has been an amazing combination of possible names. While waiting to hear what he will be named, many have asked to hear the possibilities. I'm very sensitive of how rude it may come across, but we've also avoided that. In this case, Saharh and I are both somewhat against-the-grain, which is a pretty interesting observance of how we've grown together. Today I asked her if we could at least provide hints. My hints are usually pretty vague but they'll also give you a sense of how we've gone through the process, if it could be called a process. She agreed to the hints and so I've thrown a couple below. Understand in advance, that we were working with a set of four or five possible names for almost a month and then two more entered the fold. I say that so that you know, these hints may not fit the final outcome. I can't tell you how much I long, as intimidating as the experience would be, for an angel to come down and just give us a name. The Spirit has been working in other ways though and so here are the hints.

- Jesus has often been referred to as a lion and we have found many many variations of names relating to lions. We love Jesus and how he's often portrayed as the 'lion and the lamb', so this has factored pretty heavily in the naming process.

- We've avoided using family member names because we have so many great family members and can't name him after all of them. To me, picking one of those names is too much like picking favorites, so I'd rather not do that.

- We're not locked into English words, which should be a no-brainer because Saharh is Persian and has a rich cultural heritage. A few of the names we've considered have Persian origins.

- Recently we've been learning a lot about God's love for Israel. Because of this, names related to Israel and names of Hebrew origin have come into play as well.

- We've tried to limit the name to two-middle names and no more. :) A friend of mine has three.

So if the suspense is killing any of you, be sure that it's having the same effect on us. I often go to talk to him and am not quite sure what to call him yet. Regardless of this, I still enjoy simply calling him 'my son'. Thanks for everyone's prayers and patience with our peculiarities. We can't wait to unveil our son and his name to everyone in January. (Preferably no sooner than that and if you knew how many times we've been to the hospital because of contractions, you'd understand that statement.)