The Name Game

With everyone having babies lately and trying to figure out what to name them has made me remember naming our kids. My plan is to make a scrapbook page for each of my kids telling them how we decided on their name. But that hasn't happened yet, I know that I am behind. I will probably be behind the rest of my life.
The funny thing is we had girl names picked out for each of our kids but with all of them we had to make the final decision on the boy name at the hospital. With our kids their first names were just names that we liked and their middle names have meaning to us.

Kylan - was going to be named Kylie Anne. We were actually told that he probably was a girl. The doctor couldn't really see very well and guessed a girl. Luckily, it was not a sure thing and we didn't buy any pink things. We went neutral. Anyway, I looked in a baby naming book for the definition of Kylie and saw the variation of Kylan. I thought oh, that is a cute name but I am not going to have a Kylie and a Kylan. Another boy name we thought about was Shae(I am not sure on how we would have spelled it). But in the end we liked Kylan the best. I think that he likes his name and the uniqueness of it except he gets a little tired of repeating himself when people ask what his name is and how to spell it. I put a lot of thought into his name before we named him and decided I like it partly because there were options with it. He could go by Kylan, Kyle, Ky.

Hunter - would have been Taylor Jena if he had been a girl. We knew he was a boy while I was still prego (I can't wait), so we had either Hunter or Gavin picked. When he was born, while we were still at the hospital, Stephen and I were both leaning toward Gavin. Before we named him, we asked Kylan what he thought and he was determined to name him Hunter. He would not hear of anything else. So we let Kylan pick Hunter.

Beck - would have been Brooklyn Jena if he had been a girl. Once again we knew that he was a boy while I was still preg., so we liked either Beck or Gavin once again. We decided when we saw him that we liked Beck better. Contrary to some beliefs the name Beck did not come from a BYU football player or the Beckett magazine. Stephen heard the name and liked it and actually I think he saw it in a baby naming book first. The middle name Jena is a combination of my mom's name (Jan) and Stephen's mom's name (Debra). I thought that this would be a cute name and have some meaning.

Gavin - with Gavin, I knew that I wanted a girl with the nickname of Brie. I liked the name and it had a connection to Stephen's mission. So I was debating between Brielle or Briette and then Jena for the middle. Once again we found out he was a boy and started looking for a name. As soon as I find out I am preg. I have to start looking for names. I spend so much time looking through baby naming books and probably drive Stephen nuts talking about it all the time. Anyway, by the time he was born we couldn't find another name that we liked better than Gavin.

So middle names...
Kylan's is Randall which is Stephen's middle name
Hunter's is Richard which is my dad's name
Beck's is Stephen, enough said
Gavin's is Maddux which is one of Stephen's favorite baseball players. Stephen has always wanted to name one of his kids after a sports person. I finally let him with the fourth one. My only rule was that it had to be an upstanding person that my kid wouldn't mind being named after.

Before we started having kids Stephen wanted to name one of his girl's Elodie after a little cute girl that he met on his mission. I didn't like the name because it sounded like Melodie, which I don't really like and it reminded me of a girl in high school. But now if we were to have a girl I would consider Elodie and nickname her Ellie. We don't plan on having any more kids so I don't think this will ever be an issue.