What's in a name

I've been naming my children since I was ten, maybe before that. I went through many, many names before finally deciding on my favorites when I was in high school. Tanner, for a boy, and my girl would be Caris*. I carried those names with me for years. I rattled them off to past boyfriends and every one, perhaps fueled by new relationship appeasement, nodded, smiled and agreed they were good names. I knew in my bones none of those boys would be the father, but I loved that the record was proving the woman seems to have the upper-hand in naming privileges. I was sure, I was certain. Those would be my kids' names.

Then I met Mike.

The day I met him, he had a torn piece of paper in his wallet with names he liked written on it. Taylor, Tyler, Jordan.

"You've already named your kids?"

"Uh, I like those names, yeah."

"I have too."

"Really, what are they?"

"Tanner, for a boy."

"That's an awful name."

"Caris, for a girl."

"Maybe the worst name I've ever heard."

My heart sunk. Even then, I knew I wanted him to be the dad.

***************

When we found out I was pregnant, the first fight we had was over the name.

I accepted my first picks weren't going to fly. I accepted there would have to be compromise. I accepted my husband was a stubborn, frustrating man who has way more opinions over his kid's names than any of my past boyfriends. Huh, all those wrong-for-me boys weren't looking quite so incompatible when I was three months pregnant and screaming at Mike, "WHAT IS WRONG WITH ETHAN?"

***************

I went to Texas A&M. Our stadium -- picked best in the Big 12 plenty of times -- is called Kyle Field. The first time I set foot in the place, I thought, Huh, Kyle? I like that name. It'd be cool to marry an Aggie and name our son Kyle.

Then I thought, No chance in hell is that actually going to happen. Besides, he'll be Tanner.

***************

Right after we got pregnant:

"What about Kyle? I love Kyle. It's short, it's easy to spell, it's not too common but not too "where'd they come up with THAT name?"

"Um. Yeah, that's not bad, but I like Parker better."

"I like Kyle better. AND I'M THE ONE CARRYING THE BABY, MY GOD THROW ME A BONE."

"Please stop yelling."

***************

The morning of our revealing-the-sex ultrasound, we were standing at the door STILL arguing over our kid's name. Finally, exasperated, he turned to me and said, "OK, if it's a boy, you can name him. If it's a girl, I'll name her."

"Deal."

"Pinky promise."

"Done."

***************

The ultrasound tech turned the monitor toward us and said, "See that, right there."

"IT'S A BOY!" I screamed. I had seen enough boy u/s pictures to know precisely what I was looking at.

Mike beamed. We laughed and kissed. There wasn't real shock, actually. I always knew it was a boy, in my bones, the way you just know things from time to time.

"He's Kyle," I said as I looked Mike square in the eyes.

"He's Kyle," he said, slightly defeated but still smiling, still happy.

Kyle Parker he became. Kyle Parker he has always been.

***************

So, how did your kid's name come to be what you wrote on the birth certificate? And what is it or what would you like it to be?

***************

*I've never met anyone else who likes the name Caris (other than all those agreeable boys I dated and Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones). If you like it, steal it. It's too beautiful a name not to be used by someone I know, someday.

Comments

[duchessbelle]

since i don't have kids, i'll give you the story of my name. born, it's a girl, parents argued for three days. mom liked marjorie and dad had a bit of a bewitched thing going on and wouldn't budge from samantha or tabitha. no compromise could be reached and so they named me stephanie. why? "we heard other people doing it and we were both just whatever at that point". uhhh, thanks? and now i have the most popular baby name of 1981 even though they always told me i was a unique special snowflake :)

[Dianna]

So ou married your Aggie and named the baby Kyle. I think things worked out rather perfectly for you. And you're right: not too common, not easy to mess up in spelling. However, I did work with someone whose name was Kyle, but spelled Kiel. Interesting. Regardless, your Kyle is adorable.

[Steph]

That is the cutest story ever! And no kids here, but Cale and I still throw around baby names almost every other day.

I may or may not have an excel spreadsheet of them. With rankings and meanings.

Okay I'm crazy.

[Jen]

Regarding the name Caris, my cousin named his daughter that, only with a K. I think it's very lovely, actually, so Mike and all those other disagreeable people can suck it.

And surely you've read how we decided on Rowan, so I won't regale you with the long-winded story here. But I will say that on a pretty regular basis, Roth and I congratulate ourselves on a baby well named.

[Rachel]

Every name I suggested to Mike was vetoed and vice versa. But let me say, one of his suggestions was Bauer. End of story. I remember coming across the name Noah years ago but Mike said he didn't like it, but he has a dedency to change his mind by never remembering he disliked something in the first place. So we were sitting on the couch and I took a chance. I said "What about Noah" and he said "Noah." We both smiled at each other at that was it. It made me feel exactly how I wanted to feel when we found the right name. And when he was born, he was definitely a Noah.

[bessie.viola]

That is adorable. My daughter is Madeline Grace, and has always, always been Madeline Grace. I revealed the name shortly after he proposed, and like I had accepted the ring, he accepted the name. We waited until she was born to find out what we'd have, and one of the best moments of my life was when he peeked behind the drape, then back at me: "It's a girl! Madeline. It's Madeline."

Still makes me cry.

Boys, however... oh, we have been round and ROUND on boys. He rejected Benjamin, Nathan, Nolan, Ethan, Isaiah. We settled on Isaac James. Then our best friends had a boy, who they named Isaac.

Another trip to the drawing board revealed that our boy would be Collin James. I believe he's still within me, waiting... we'll have our Collin someday too, I think.

LOVE your story. So sweet... and I like the name Kyle, too.

[andrea]

I love this story, impressed that you guys stuck to the pinky swear and you got to have the final say.

Our names were a little easier to come by, both family, although my husbands side as my family has terrible names. I'd always loved the name Charlie and it was a no brain-er since my FIL's name is Charles. I did have the momentary freak out just before he was born, but since the name was written on the wall with rope (cowboy room) there was little I could do and now I can't imagine him as anything but Charlie.

My little girl had always been Lucy or Lulu, as far back as I can remember. Lucky enough I married a man with a Lucille for a grandmother and Lucy for a great-grandmother so it worked well for me. I will say that even though it is a family name my MIL let us know long ago she did not like the name, although I am pretty sure she has now come around. I love it because Lucy's middle name is Louise, so she truly is a Lulu.

The sad things is we already have both names set in stone for #3 even though there has been no decision to whether we will have a #3.

[bessie.viola]

Or maybe Colin. We haven't decided.

(Although I want NOONE to pronounce it COLON, so I'm pretty sure we'll stick with Collin).

[C @ Kid Things]

There is NOTHING wrong with the name Ethan. Nothing at all. (It's the name of my 3 year old, I may be a bit biased here.)

Our kids names were chosen because we ran out of other options. I didn't like any of his names, he didn't like any of mine. We finally said a name, declared it wasn't awful, and there you have it.

[She Likes Purple]

Thank you!

[She Likes Purple]

I love Ethan!

[cindy w]

My daughter is Catherine Renee - named after 2 of my cousins who I adore. We call her Catie.

My husband was thoroughly frustrating in that he wouldn't even discuss baby names until we knew what we were having. Why argue about boy names if we're having a girl? Which, fine, I guess, but then we only had 20! weeks! left to decide on a name, which might as well have been 5 minutes to my crazy pregnant brain.

We hemmed and hawed and went back and forth about the name until about an hour after she was born. Which is better than my cousin (Catherine, who my daughter was named after). Her son didn't have a name until about 30 seconds before she was discharged from the hospital.

[rebecca]

wow, our names...
Violet Lynn was easy, super easy. Jason likes flower names, and both of my grandmothers' middles names were Violet. It is vintage-y without being dusty, not too common, not too strange. Lynn is my mother and my middle name.
With such a perfect first time, the second was hard. Should we go with another flower? I wanted there to be a family connection, Jason wanted the same number of syllables as Violet. We decided against the flowers, and ended up naming her after my dad, Carl, and Jason: Carli Jay. I love the name, but wonder about the spelling. I didn't want 2 y's in her name, and I didn't want to spell Jay Jae. And Carli is more fun to write than Carlie. But her name suits her so well.

We are all done with babies, but if we would have had a boy instead of Violet, he would have been Max. (Maximus Aquilla...family names...I know, crazy...) However, when it came Carli's turn, we decided not to use it because it is the name we assigned to the baby we lost. Instead, we would have named her(him) David Carl, after both our fathers.
But I am glad to be done. naming babies is hard. HARD.

[Kristina]

What a wonderful wonderful story! My brother's name is Kyle, and it's worked for him :) I L.O.V.E the name Caris, ever since I read it in Pillars of the Earth. But please answer a question for me- I thought you pronounce it Caris, rymes with Paris, but someone told me it was Caris like Carrie? If I end up PG w/ a girl, this will be the name I push for.

Before I got pregnant, hubs and I were pretty much decided on Nolan for a boy. However, my husband, being the world's biggest baseball fan, insisted that his middle name be Ryan. I refused to do that to my child, so we were kind of at a standstill. Then I lost my brother, got pregnant, and we decided we really wanted the baby's middle name (if it was a boy) to be Nathan, after my brother. Soooo (sorry this is getting long) because we thought Nolan Nathan sounded weird, we settled on our 2nd choice boy name, Caleb. So, he is Caleb Nathan and it's perfect for him!

[Leah]

I would totally use Caris (or Carys), but I think my other half would object because he's like that.

[Rhi]

I nannied for the SWEETEST little girl ever named Karys. Oh, I miss that little girl. Her mom told me that she used to pretend call me after I'd go home and say, "Rhianny? Okay? Love you! Bye!"

So, of course I love that name.

[Tara]

I love your story; so cute. And his name fits him!

I am having a daughter in December and my husband and I have determined that she will be called Annalisa Margaret or Natalia Margaret (we will wait until we see her to make the final decision). It's very unceremonious, but I came across Annalisa in a book, and Natalia is a name I heard on CSI: Miami (and means 'born on Christmas', which I love for a Dec. baby). I liked that these names are not in the top 100 and only one has been in the last 100 years. I made a list of the top 10 names I liked and my husband and I each picked our top three. Annalisa and Natalia were both of our top two.

[A'Dell]

I've always thought Kyle was a good boy name for the same red-ass reasons.

Claire was always a Claire. It was a name I'd flirted with over the years when I let myself Go There and it was the first name I suggested to Chris. He loved it. We ran though the rest of the baby book and he never liked any other names.

When the OB said she was definitely a girl I looked at him and said, "We have a Claire, don't we?"

Of course, when she was born we couldn't imagine any other name for her. It's funny how their names somehow FIT them, isn't it?

[Melissa]

One of my French professors had a daughter named Carys - I believe it's pronounced the same way. I love that name! I guess it's rather normal in Wales. Caris looks more American. Hmm ...

My firstborn was named before we knew he was a boy.

My secondborn was named two weeks before we had him.

For as long as I can remember, I wanted to name my son Blake. My husband hates it. I have two sons, not a single name is Blake.

For our firstborn, the girl name was Cailin (though, we couldn't figure out "the correct" spelling).

For our secondborn, the girl name was Cara.

I love the name Sonnet. LOVE it. I'm not sure it'll actual be MY daughter's name (should I have a daughter), but I think it's totally cool and fresh and fun.

[Penny in Exile]

My son's name is a bit complicated. His first name is my husband's last name and his last name is my last name (I kept my last name).

I am always curious when people make the if it is a girl/boy you can name it deal what if they pick a name that is just awful...like Agina or something, that you just HATE...how do you get out of it, (not that your husband would)?

[Christina]

I love the story! And love Kyle, too. It's been taken of my list since the birth of yours.

Nathan's name came from a TV show. Ages ago there was one season of "The Days" and there was a little kid around 8 or so that I fell in love with. He wore glasses and was a bit dorky and really polite. He seemed like a kid I could have created. Over time I just began to love it more and more, it became less about a cute tv character and more about a real life possibility. His middle name is Riley. My maternal grandmother’s maiden name was O'Riley. She freaked out when I called to tell her Nathan Riley was here... she paused for a minute, "Honey, you know? OF COURSE YOU KNOW!" She was on an airplane 2 days later. His name is Nathan RILEY- as far as I’m concerned I’m 2 days late! I wasn’t sure if keeping it a secret/not asking permission was the way to go. Totally was!

[Rachael]

We had numerous arguments over the name. If it was a girl, she was going to be Lily Dawn. And it WAS a girl, we knew. We were certain. Until the ultrasound tech pointed out the little penis in the picture. A BOY??? So after batting some back and forth (what's wrong with Shamus? It's a good Irish name, I like it) we settled on Adam or Nathan, and Adam or Nathan he would be, with the middle name Michael after my Dad. One day a different name popped into my head, and I said it out loud. I don't know where it came from (the ether?) and my husband still insisted we wouldn't really know til we saw him, but I knew. His name was Alex. And the moment I first saw his little Alex face, I knew it was Alex, always had been, and always will be. Our Alex. Of course, now we call him Bear. But whatever.

[Heather]

Oh naming our children was a struggle. Not so much our son, who we didn't know for sure was a boy until he was born, we were able to agree on his name fairly easily. The girls on the other hand? What a struggle! I don't know why it was so hard.

[Maggie]

My husband, also, has entirely too many opinions about names. I wanted either an Elliott or a James and I ended up with a Jackson, because one day my husband heard it combined with our last name and decided it sounded like a Hong Kong martial arts movie star. Which is a FAR CRY from the more, ah, literary sound I was going for.

The girl was just as hard, but mostly because I hated his names (hello! the 80s are OVER!) and he hated my names. We could only agree on one name, which happens to be your dog's name, but I've lived with a dog's name my whole life too and it didn't kill me. Much.

And we weren't set on either of our kids' names until they were born. And with the first, we asked the nurse to pick his middle name. WE SUCK AT NAMES.

[Miranda]

When my husband, Geoff, and I first started dating I had this dream where we were at his parent's house and there was this little girl hanging out with us. Her name was Hayley, she was about 3 and we all were very familiar with her yet her relationship with all of us was never made clear. I woke up and told Geoff about it, not thinking much- just rambling off my dreams as I often do, and he stopped me mid-sentence. "Did I ever tell you about that?" he asked me. I was annoyed he inturrupted me and was like, "No..." He then told me that if he'd been a girl his mom would have named him Hayley and over the years, as his parent's tried and tried to give him a sibling, they often talked about having a little Hayley.

From then on we talked about one day having our own Hayley, imagining our lives with her. Then I became PG and we couldn't wait to find out the gender. When our OB said it was a girl it was like, "Of course. She's always been ours."

That's the story behind Hayley. Her middle name, Olivia, might have something to do with Law and Order: SVU, but if anyone ever calls me on it I'll totally deny it.

[Jane]

We were having a tough time coming up with a girl name. Not sure why, but decided to ask Chad what he thought of my maternal grandmother's middle names (she had 2). Lydia wasn't his favorite, but Maria he liked! And me too. I just had to get over that a friend of mine that I maybe see once a year had a 5 year old with the same name. Chad didn't have to get over it, because he had never met this friend or her daughter. The middle name was from me looking at our rows of movies, and naming off characters from them. Got to Beauty & the Beast and said 'Belle?' and Chad loved it. So there you go. Maria Belle.

Now if we have another girl, we'll start all over. The boy's name we've had since way before Maria...

And Kyle is a great name! Exactly what you said. Not overly used, but people aren't going to wonder how to spell it or wonder where you came up with it.

[Jess]

What a cute story. The name you ended up with is great. Though I really like Tanner. Torsten hates it, though. Tragically.

[Holley]

Am I the only one that says, "Hello Caris" in the Hannibal Lecter voice? Was that not her name?

[Becca]

Well, interesting story!
I don't have any of my own kids (yet, the soccer player in my belly will be here in November). Hubby has two but I obviously wasn't included in naming them. lol.
Anyways, hubby and I came to an agreement much like yours only he got to name if boy, me if girl. Well we are having a boy, so he got to pick. I really like the name though, even more when he told me why and I could see how strongly he felt about it.
He was not included much when it came to his first son in the beginning, so i want this to be as special for him as it is for me even though he already has two children, I want this to be a better experience for him.

[Zoo]

I don't have kids and it's unlikely I ever will, but I have had a mental list of names for, like, 15 or 20 years. They're all variations of names from my family tree, and I get irrationally upset that they are becoming more popular these days. :P Evelyn/Eve, Amelia, Anna, Genevieve, August, George/Georgia, Wes, Gavin, Margo/Margaret... I seem to hear them pretty frequently, at least on people's "maybe" lists. So much for me being original.

Kyle's name is just perfect; great story!

[See Sherm Blog]

Ha. This is like Kyle and I naming Rowan. Kyle and I were both in love with different names. I won though. hehe.

I LOVE the name Caris. And I would totally steal it, but my cousin just named her baby girl Caris. How can somebody NOT love that name????

[kdiddy]

Kyle Parker is a lovely name. I like. :-)
Our son's name came out of a baby name book! It was actually a variation on one of the main entries, but once we spotted it, we realized that it could be meaningful and it was certainly unique. I was still on the fence about it until I saw it written out somewhere random and realized how fantastic it looked on paper, but we finally went with it.

[Katie]

Oh goodness, Jon and I are already fighting over first names! The middle names were very easy (my maiden for a girl and his first for a boy-tradition in his family) but I swear to God he's driving me crazy with the first names. If he's heard of anyone with the name, that's an automatic no because he has an "association" with the name. He's crazy.

[Debbie in the UK]

Carys means love in Welsh. It rhymes with Paris. CZJ and MD called both their kids Welsh names.

I called my daughter Michaela because when I was growing up there was a little girl in the street called that and they called her Kylie for short. Thats exactly what I did. Up until she was born she was going to be Jessica Louise but I thought she would be fair and she came out with a shock of black hair, she didn't look like a Jessica at all! Noone had heard of the name Kylie (which is what we call her) and this was way before Kylie Minogue came on the scene.

My son is called Jordan because I loved it since I was a kid. My husband hated it and so we had come up with Sam Alexander. Then hubs announced he wanted HIS name as a middle name and that would have meanr three "S" initials which I said was ridiculous, so he caved on the first name and Jordan Stephen he is!!

xx

[Sara]

I like Caris :) And if our last name didn't start with an S, I would be all over it.

We picked Noah's name on the plane from Chicago to San Diego when we had only been dating for a few months. It was our first trip together and we were having fun naming our unborn, not even a twinkle in the eye, future children. His name popped up, I think I may have mentioned it first, and Tim agreed immediately. So when we went for our ultrasound, and the tech told us it was a boy, we looked at each other and just said "It's Noah". Actually, other than Noah's birth, that was one of the best moments of my life. And so Noah Burton it was and is.

[Kristie]

I don't think I ever knew where Kyle came from. Or if I did I probably forgot. You know me.

Derick's name came from a baby name book. I like the ring to it and it stuck. His middle name, Lee, is a family name that went well with his first and last name.

Jackson's name is Eric's moms maiden name. I remember exactly where we were when Eric picked that name. We never picked another name because I just love Jackson. Little did know every mother would feel the same. Gah! His middle name is also Lee, it's a family name in Eric's family too and I liked that both my boys have the same middle name.

[Erin]

My brother's name is Kyle and my son's name is Ethan! Weird.

So. We didn't find out our baby's gender before The Birth Day, so we had a short list for both. Ethan was on that list, but not a top-contender, because our last name also begins with the letters "Eth" (Etheridge). However, when he was born, I asked my hubs "So who does he look like?" And he actually said, "I think he looks like Ethan." So there it was.

His middle name is Lucas, because way back when we were dating, I dreamed we had a little boy and named him Lucas.

[MommaMo]

Before we even tried starting a family, it was a joke to pick through names. Well those books were handy when we found out that I was pregnant. We decided to honor each side of the family with a "family" inspired middle name. If it was a boy, it would be a name common or of meaning in Thomas's family; a girl would have something from my side. As for the first name, we thought that that should be something that we decided on jointly. We had narrowed our options down to a two or three for each sex. Then we found out we were having a girl, and by that time we had realized that we had been saying her name all along and it sounded the most "right" when we said it. Now we have our Sadie Ellen, Ellen being the matriarchal middle name - my mom's middle name is Ellen, and her mom's (my grandmom's) first name is Helen. Unfortunately, our little girl may have some identity issues later because we always call her Mo, our favorite nickname for her.

[Lane]

I just love the name Kyle Parker so much! I think it fit's your little man so well.

I have always liked the name Cole, and his middle name, Ethan ... well we just kind of pulled that out of our ass one day. Thought it flowed well.

As for this pregnancy, I have no clue what in the hell to name him/her. Any suggestions? I like Ava, but so does everyone else and their dog. One problem with not finding out the gender is coming up, and agreeing on two names.

[Jennie]

Lane, Caris! Take it, use it, love it.

[Rebecca (Bearca)]

I love the name Caris too! But alas, my husband HATED IT. My son is Evan Charles and my daughter is Delaney Lea. I really wanted to name her Julian (which is a boys' name) but again, my husband - like yours - was very opinionated in the naming department. But in the end, I'm very happy with both their names!

[Jennie]

I love the name Delaney! (And Evan, too.)