What's in a Name?

When I was a cashier, I enjoyed my job because I got to talk to people from all walks of life. It made a quite monotonous job quite exciting. You never know who you are going to meet next and what sort of interesting things you will hear. Sometimes you get the same people and develop a working friendship. I usually start conversations whimsically with whatever crosses my mind at the time or with something I notice about the person that seems interesting. But there were a couple of topics that I would revisit quite often. One was of course, "What are you going to make with this?" This one's great for people who don't really look like they are having a very good day, and you surely don't want to ask the loaded question, "How are you today?" I have learned so much about cooking just from asking this simple little question and also tried many foods i ordinarily would have had no clue how to prepare. Take spaghetti squash, for example. If you've never heard of it, it is this large yellow oval-shaped vegetable, so rarely purchased that I never memorized the PLU code for it (that number we type into the register that tells it what produce item you are buying. 4011 is for bananas. Everybody buys bananas. I think I will know that number for the rest of my life!) I asked a customer, "What are you going to make with this?" and she told me she just pops it whole in a 370 degree oven for an hour. Then she cuts it open, scrapes it out and serves it with spaghetti sauce. She said it looks just like spaghetti and tastes similar. Of course, I had to try it, so I bought one that day. Sure enough, it looks just like spaghetti! And while it does not really taste like spaghetti, it does have great flavor when served with marinara, especially if you like yellow squash and zucchini. Zucchini taste good with tomato sauce also. I make a Zucchini lasagna where you use zucchini instead of pasta by thinly slicing the zucchini long ways. It is one of my family's favorite dishes. I think I could write a whole book about what I have learned about cooking and nutrition, but that is not what I wanted to talk about here.


The other question I would ask frequently is, "How did you get your name?" When you come in contact with lots of people, you get to learn some of the most interesting names, some that are collections of letters you have never seen or heard before. I love words, so I can't say that I have ever found a name that I didn't like. Every word has a meaning, and consequently, so does every one's name. Even if it is a completely made up concoction of letters, it was created by people who love their child and wanted to give them a name that was special and unique, and if you ask them, they will tell you what it means. So I love to ask that question, and people love to answer it, I think because people love to talk about their story. That's why we have so may autobiographies and blogs - it's fun to talk about your life, and your life began with your name. Most people have a name even before they are born, and in some cases, even before they are conceived! There is an interesting story behind my name. I loved hearing it when I was a kid, and I always love to tell it.


My mother told me that she had my name picked out before I was born. If I was a boy, I would have been Michael Ray, Jr. If I was a girl, I would have been Trisha Fay. This name was special to her. My dad was raised by his grandmother, Fay. Her name was actually Ellen Fay, but she went by Fay; her grandmother's name was also Ellen. My dad loved this woman so much because of all she did for him and his brother and 2 sisters after their parents left them. I think her influence on him is what inspired him to join the navy, so he could go to college and be able to take care of his family. I think maybe he would not have even wanted a family of his own if it were not for her. My mom loved Fay also, so she wanted to name her little girl after her. People often ask pregnant women what names they have chosen for their baby. my mom did not think anything of it when her sister-in-law asked her that question, so she answered it. It happens that they were both pregnant at the same time, but I was due a few weeks later. I am sure that my dad's sister loved Fay just as much as my dad for the same reasons, and she wanted to honor her also. However, she decided to name her baby girl the exact name that my mom had chosen for me, even spelled the same, too. Of course my mom was livid. So livid that she didn't even choose another girl's name. When I was born, she told my dad to name me, and he named me Carrie Lynn. This is the story my mom told me when I was a little girl. Now that I am thinking of this, I wish I had asked my dad why he chose that name for me. It's a pretty name, I think, although when I was little i thought it was very plain. My sisters' names were Catherine and Candace, but they went by Cathy and Candy. I was jealous that they had a longer name, that it was special that they had 2 first names. So in the 5th grade, when I moved to a new school, I decided to tell my new friend that my name was Carissa, and that I went by Carrie for short. She was the only one I told that story to, but I never told her about that fib until we were in high school! I felt bad about the lie all that time, but it turns out she had forgotten about it completely. My sisters now go by Candace and Catherine. I think they decided it sounded more grown up than Cathy or Candy. I am still Carrie, and I have not changed much except now I have a new last name and 4 kids who I get to tell the stories behind their names.


Dallas Michael

Because Dan is such a HUGE monster Dallas Cowboys fan and has been since his dad brainwashed him as a toddler, many have thought, including his and my family, that we named Dallas after the football team. Not so. In fact, I had the name Dallas picked out for my son even before I married Dan, before I even knew how crazy he was about the Cowboys. Dan's and my first date was on April 7, 1994. Football season was over, and our love was young. We did not discuss our affinity for any certain sports or teams. I got a summer job working as a counselor at a resident camp in Granbury, Texas. While there, I met a boy, a senior in high school, whose name was Dallas. He was from Tennessee. He was a CIT (counselor in training), and he was just an awesome human being. I only had sisters, so I didn't know much about boys. But I remember thinking if I ever had a son, I would hope he would be like this boy. He was kind, smart, personable, and fun. I would never have thought about Dallas as a name, especially being from Texas. It's a city. I once met a girl named Abilene. She had a brother named Jackson. Their parents travelled a lot, and she said they were all named after the cities they were conceived in. If I used that method, Dallas would be named Huntsville, Noah would be Houston, and Savanna and Bailey would share the name Round Rock - or maybe I could have named one Round and the other Rock. =-) After knowing the boy, I fell in love with the name. I also love unique names and other than him and my son, have never met another Dallas. As soon as he found out I was pregnant, my dad was extremely excited and would refer to him as "his baby." When he found out it was a boy, he really really really wanted me to name him Michael Ray, after him. We did choose his middle name for my dad. I love the name Michael but was not all that keen on Ray, and what he didn't know was that I already had Dallas's name picked out, even before he was born. Dan didn't even know. When I told him, he begged me not to name him Dallas because he just knew the ribbings he would get for it from his family. He was right, of course, and almost all our family were not all that thrilled with our name choice, but if you know Dallas, you know it is the right name for him. It fits him. Although the ultrasound tech was certain he was a boy (so was the tech who said Dan's little brother was a girl), I had a girl name picked out just in case: Chelsea Noelle. Chelsea for this sweet little girl I babysat for 2 summers in high school, and Noelle because my baby was due on December 31st. Dallas was born the day after Christmas, but I was calling him Dallas since the moment I found out he was a boy.


Noah Gabriel

When I found out I was pregnant for a second time, I really hoped I was having a girl. Originally, we planned to have 2 children, so I was a little sad when the ultrasound tech said he was a boy. She said she was 95% certain, so I didn't stay too upset. There was a 5% chance I was having a girl. However, when they put that little boy in my arms, I fell so deeply in love with him that I never cared again that I would not be having a little girl. But since Chelsea was especially created for baby one, I thought I should come up with a special name for baby two. I actually spent more time coming up with girl names than I did on boy names, probably because I knew it would be my last chance to. Women love to come up with girl names, at least all the women I have ever talked to about the subject. There are lots of names I loved, but Dan is very picky when it comes to names. He was very hard to please. Since I was so controlling over naming Dallas even though he didn't want to name him Dallas (He loved the name just like me; he just didn't want to hear all the Cowboys jokes from our families), this time I decided to let Dan have control over the name choice. Since he is a man, he had no clue how to come up with a name. I still don't know how my dad did it. So I made lists of names, and most of them got shot down, some of them were my favorites. I liked the name Jason for a boy - he hated it! My baby name search was my first encounter with the Internet. I was on http://www.babycenter.com/ all the time. Through my friend Anna, I met a girl named Kinsey when I was in junior high. Just like when I met Dallas, I was immediately intrigued by her unique name, but I wanted to spell it different. I also have always loved the name Isabella, but have never met anyone with that name. So for my 5% chance of having a girl, I chose the name Kenzie Isabel. I dropped the 'a' on Isabella because I thought it fit better. For a boy, I liked the name Bailey. Dan liked it, too, but he was a little concerned people would think we named him after the boy on a TV show that I cannot even remember the name of now. Even still, of all the names I came up with that I liked, that was his favorite. I picked the middle name from the lists on the internet, Donovan. I thought it sounded very manly, since Bailey was sometimes used as a girl's name. Bailey Donovan. Just like with Dallas, we went into childbirth with just 2 names (although we did still have Chelsea Noelle in the memory banks from before). We had done the baby thing before, drug free, so we were all prepared with our tape player and Enya tape. Unlike with Dallas, I was not calling the baby Bailey since I thought it still could be a girl. So when I met my new baby, after all the initial gamut of intense emotions, I realized our baby looked nothing like a Bailey. I could not name him Bailey, as much as I wanted to and loved the name. Ever since he was tiny, I had been calling Dallas "Geeger" (that's a story for another day), so before he had a name we called him "Little Bitty Geeger Babe" I had the baby name packed in my bag, who knows why, but I am glad! I was in the hospital for 2 days, and I spent most of my time lathering my baby with love and attention and a little time looking through the book. I didn't have the master list with me, so we were starting from scratch. When I was pregnant with Dallas, Dan had wanted to name him Noah. I was not thrilled with that name and had not really even considered it for this baby. But the name came back to me, and our baby looked like a Noah. So he had a name by the end of day one, but we were stumped on a middle name. We thought we could just wait and pick one later, but the nurse told us we could not leave until we filled out the social security form, which we found out later was not true. So at the very last moment we picked Gabriel. Dallas's middle name was that of an archangel. Gabriel is an archangel also and we liked it because of that. I am not totally certain that would have been the name we chose if we had more time, but we really wanted to go home! Noah's name fits him well also.


Savanna Rayne

When I found I was having a from my Dr.'s fancy 3-D sonogram that our baby was a girl (and with those images, there is no doubt whatsoever what the sex is), I was excited, elated, extremely exuberant! Mamas love to come up with little girl names. For some reason, they are a lot more fun than boys names, for me anyway. However, Dan is very hard to appease when it comes to girl names even more than boy names. Of course, Kenzie Isabel was still on the table as a choice, but the year before I became pregnant with Savanna, we added a puppy girl to our family and named her Chelsea for the girl that I never had. Little did we know we would get pregnant again! I came up with over a dozen full names, but the only one he liked was Savannah Rain. Yes, I spelled it that way at first. I actually love the name Anna because of a special friend of mine, but Dan was not too thrilled with it. But he really liked Savannah. When trying to think of a middle name, I envisioned a savannah and thought the image of a light rain was a beautiful picture. Very simple and pure. We decided to wait until our daughter was born to name her (learning from the Bailey-Noah incident) to see which name fit her best. I knew right when I saw her for the first time that she was Savannah. It was a last minute decision to change the spelling of her name to Savanna without the "h." I thought it was prettier that way, like my friend's name. The "h" is silent anyway, so I figured we'd save her a lot of trouble. (Not so, my friend, her name is misspelled more than any of my children. I didn't think the Georgia city was that well known, and you would not believe the ways people have misspelled my name - my pet peeve is when they spell it "Carry" like the verb - how ugly is that? I don't tell how to spell it anymore just to see new ways to spell my name! I don't think anyone has spelled Savanna right to date without my saying so.) And then right after I made that change, I had an epiphany and thought we could name her after Dan's and my father's and his father's middle name, Ray, by changing the spelling of "Rain" to "Rayne." Literally, I changed both spellings as I was filling out the social security form right before we left. I tried it out on paper a few times, and we both liked the new spelling better. I wanted a little girl from the first time I found out I was pregnant all the way to the third. The journey began with Chelsea Noelle for our Christmas baby, then Kenzie Isabel, and finally Savanna Rayne. I got my girl. Ironically, she is more boy than any of my boys!

Bailey Donovan

This one's easy. We've already talked about it. This was the name we had picked out for Noah. Since I got my girl, I really had no special desire for a girl or a boy this time. I knew how to raise boys, but I gave away most of our boy clothes and toys. I had loads of cute baby girl clothes, bibs, and toys. So Dan and I decided to be surprised this time. It was frustrating because the sex was listed right there in my chart, and we had to keep reminding Dr. Schwertner not to accidentally slip the sex to us. Just like it's not that common for mothers to have natural labor anymore (every time I did it, the nurses were excited to be doing something different), it was equally uncommon for moms to not want to know the sex of the baby. I am so glad we did it. It was very exciting! I really didn't have a preference, but I was so sure it was going to be a girl. I figured I have my babies in twos, why not two girls, then two boys? I was really surprised when Dr. Sherman told me he was a boy! We had a list of names available, but Kenzie Isabel and Bailey Donovan were our favorites. And thank goodness, he looked like a Bailey! He actually looked exactly like Dallas. When I saw him, it brought me back to the day my first baby was born nine years earlier.

I love my babies, I love my children, and I put a lot of thought and love into choosing their names. When I speak their names, I speak my love. I hope they love their name and their story.

So what's in a name? Lots of love, that's what. Just ask my kids when I jokingly talk of changing their names. They would not feel as sweet,or special, by any other name.