Looking back on each pregnancy and our discussions of baby names for each one, it has been really interesting to me to find a trend. With our first, I remember being home and thinking that the name Ethan Paul sounds really nice. Kyle wasn’t home so I would have to mention it to him later. I never did get around to mentioning it to him. Another afternoon when we were both home, sitting in the living room doing two separate things, I was sitting on the futon and Kyle was sitting at the computer, when Kyle turned around and said “How about Ethan Paul?” I just stared at him, trying to remember if I had mentioned that name without realizing it. We had the name Tyra picked out for a girl but hadn’t come up with a middle name and then we had our baby and we had a boy and so we didn’t need to worry about picking a middle name to go with Tyra.
We were pregnant with our second and started out by finding a middle name to go along with Tyra, but then Kyle and I couldn’t find any other boy names we could both agree on. We spent the whole pregnancy with the name Tyra Nicole in mind, and then our baby girl was born and it didn’t matter that we didn’t have a boy name picked out.
Our third pregnancy, we never decided on a girl name at all, and there were a couple of boy names that I was considering, but Kyle wasn’t very fond of. Well when baby was born and the nurse asked me what his name was, I had to tell her “I don’t know” and I felt REALLY bad about that. They moved me to a postpartum room and Kyle went with our baby to the nursery to watch him be bathed and when he finally came back to my room is when I pointed out that I still like the name Jeremy. Kyle said that he wasn’t too crazy about it, but then I had to point out that he was here, and he NEEDS a name. And so we decided to go with Jeremy, and selected the middle name of Luke from the New Testament.
Our fourth pregnancy we still couldn’t agree on any boy names. I really liked the name Chloe, and came up with the name Chloe Theresa, but I just didn’t feel like it was right. I was also reading the Old Testament again and came across the name Dinah, and it kind of grew on me. I threw it out as an option and Kyle asked what the middle name would be. I pulled out the baby name book and started saying the name Dinah with other names after it. Dinah Bethany just rolled together and it sounded so nice. We both liked it. Our baby was born, and Kyle asked me if she was Chloe, or if she was Dinah. I still didn’t feel right about Chloe Theresa and I had honestly been thinking of the name Dinah A LOT as birth approached and so we called her Dinah Bethany.
When we were pregnant with our fifth (which was our FIRST surprise pregnancy), Kyle and I still couldn’t agree on any boy names. But I still liked the name Chloe, and I still didn’t feel good about the middle name Theresa. Pulling out the baby name book and saying the name Dinah with other names right after for a middle name worked, so I decided to try it again. I was throwing the name Chloe out with all kinds of other names to try them on for size. I came up with the name Chloe Kalika. It just rolled so well, it sounded so perfect. Then I noticed the meanings for the names. Chloe is Greek for “a profusion of blooms” and Kalika is Greek for “rosebud”. The names just fit perfectly together, and I almost knew in that moment that we were having a girl. I wouldn’t admit it because I didn’t want to be wrong, but deep down inside, I just knew it. When we were in the hospital and baby had just been born, and the midwife asked Kyle if he wanted to be the one to tell me whether it was a boy or a girl, he didn’t have to tell me. I knew more than ever that it was a girl and her name was going to be Chloe Kalika. I knew I just wasn’t lucky enough to be able to keep our boy, girl, boy, girl pattern going. 😛
Then we were expecting our sixth, and again we still couldn’t agree on any boy names. Kyle threw around the name Adam Ondi, and I laughed at him. And when people asked what names were were considering I would jokingly mention that one and people would laugh when they put it together with our last name. Dinah kept saying that she wanted the baby’s name to be Ella. She was very consistent about that too. It never changed, every time she talked about the baby she called the baby “Ella”. But we really liked the name Lydia Grace. Then she was born and Valerie asked what her name was and I asked Dinah if she was ok with calling her Lydia, and Dinah consented.
This time around Kyle and I talked about boy names more than we did girl names. It’s a lot easier for us to find girl names that we both like. But for some reason, this time none of them sounded right. And so we went back to discussing boy names.
It has been really difficult to finalize Adam’s name. We didn’t want to tell people what his name was without giving his full name, but alas, deciding on his middle name has proven to be a bit of a challenge. Don’t worry too much, we have been calling him Adam from the time he was born. So he DID have a name from day one, just not a middle name. Kyle had joked about the name Adam Ondi for the past couple of pregnancies. For people who don’t understand, there is an LDS hymn called Adam Ondi Ahman, and our last name being Andelin… I admit it is kind of funny, for a joke. But I don’t feel like I really want to do that to the kid. I have felt really guilty since he has been born about how long it has taken to come up with a middle name. There were times that I just didn’t want to talk about it, because it was just so frustrating to me. Especially with people constantly asking if he has a name yet. Then there were the people that have asked if we have a name yet, and then they started making suggestions. I don’t even remember what they were suggesting. Kyle’s mom suggested we name him “Clancy”, and Kyle and I just looked at each other like that just wasn’t going to happen and where in the world did she come up with THAT idea??? Anyways. Both Ethan and Jeremy have middle names from the New Testament. I turned there to find a middle name for Adam. I made a list of names to ask Kyle what he thought, and finally we decided on Adam Nathaniel. And that is our little guys official name. 🙂
It is interesting though, for me to consider each of our pregnancies and notice that we only ever had one name fully picked by the time labor and birth came around. And each time the name we had figured out was the perfect gender for the baby that was born, although for both Jeremy and Adam we didn’t actually have a full name picked out at the time of birth.
