Baby Names

I get asked a lot if Natalie and Graham are named after anyone in the family, since Erica is obviously named after Eric. So I thought it would be fun to tell how we came up with our kids names. And you do that same! Either comment me, or blog about it and let me know!

Natalie Elizabeth
One of the first things I did when I found out I was pregnant, was buy a big book of baby names. I went through and highlighted all the names I liked (which looking back now, I don't know what I was thinking with some of them lol). Eric wouldn't even glance at the book until we knew what we were having. When we found out it was a girl, it still took some nagging convincing for me to get him to look through the book himself. But one day he finally did, and we each had a list of names we liked. After comparing our lists, we had very few names in common. Our biggest battle was the Madison/Madeline issue. He wanted Madison, I wanted Madeline. He kept insisting that they were close enough and we should just go with Madison. I kept insisting that they were not at all "close enough" and that I wanted Madeline! We eventually just crossed both names off the list, because it was apparent we couldn't reach a compromise on that one. It was probably a few weeks before my due date that we had narrowed it down to 2 names. I should also add that we weren't telling anyone our name choices. We didn't want to hear opinions (because you know you'll get them whether you ask for them or not). We really couldn't decide which name we wanted to go with. We decided that once she was born, we'd look at her and decide then. We had Elizabeth picked out for the middle name, whichever first name we went with. It was just a name that Eric liked a lot and I didn't have any opposition to. Up until now, we haven't told many people what the "other" name on our list was. But, it was Caroline. Once she was born though, the nurse asked us her name, and we both looked at her, looked up at each other, and said Natalie (ok I don't know that it was exaclty like that, but pretty close). We just knew she looked like a Natalie. So, there you have Natalie Elizabeth! (say her name three times fast).

Erica Hannah
Once again, one of the first things I did when I found out I was pregnant, was start looking at baby names. And once again, Eric would have nothing to do with the process until we knew what we were having. And once again, when we found out it was a girl, it took much nagging convincing for me to get him to discuss it. He was deploying to Iraq soon though, and I told him we HAD to have a name picked out before he left. God forbid something happen to him over there, I was not going to be left with the sole responsibility of naming this child on my own. I had already picked out, what I thought was for sure going to be HER NAME. Autumn Caroline. Now I just had to prove to Eric that it was the perfect name. He wasn't crazy about it, but he humored me for a bit. There was a point where I was so convinced that that was going to be her name, I'd already started coming up with ideas for her room and other things with that name. Then Eric threw me a curve ball and suggested Erica. At first I thought he was kidding because I remember back when we were talking about names for Natalie, I'd thrown that idea out there (because I knew he never wanted a Jr.) and he vetoed it. But he said he was serious and that he really liked the name and really wanted her to be named after him. I told him I'd have to think on it because while I did like the idea of naming her after him, I just wasn't sold on it yet. I didn't have anything against the name Erica itself, I think it really is a very pretty name, it's just probably not one I would have chosen if it weren't for naming her after him. So I literally took days to think it over. I never spend that long thinking about something like that. But the responsibility of naming a child is a big one and one I don't take lightly. I thought about whether or not I liked the name itself, enough to name my daughter that. I thought how Natalie might feel when she grew up, knowing her sister was named after Daddy, and she wasn't. I thought about the chances of her name getting misspelled (which does happen, A LOT). There were a lot of things I considered. The biggest though, was giving up on the name Autumn Caroline. I finally told Eric that after much deliberation, I could positively say that I would be happy to name our daughter Erica. Then it was off to find a middle name. Now, my initial thought was to just go with Erica Caroline. But for some reason, if it couldn't be Autumn Caroline, I didn't want to use Caroline at all. We went through many names possibilities, and at one point I was set on Erica Cadence. But Eric vetoed that one. I honestly don't remember who suggested Hannah, but we both liked it enough. I really liked the idea of both of our children having biblical middle names, so we decided to set it in stone. We didn't keep it a secret that time around because we wanted Natalie to get used to the name before the baby came. It was so cute too listening to her talk about "Baby Eh-cuh" in Mommy's tummy. So, there you have Erica Hannah.

Graham Joseph
Once again... blah blah blah... we found out we were having a boy, and the baby naming ensued! I went through and made a list of about a dozen names for Eric to look over and see what he liked. Some of them were: Elliott, Anderson, Wilson, Graham, Isaac, Tyler... Eric said he liked some of them, but wanted to throw out his own suggestions too: Josiah, Peter, Timothy, Nebakanezer (ok so that last one may not have actually been on his list). I told him that I had already looked through EVERY NAME IN THE ENTIRE WORLD (ha!) and that if it wasn't on my list, I didn't like it. LOL So then we started widdling down our list. Graham was my front runner, and I think he knew it. But when it kept staying on the list (he'd literally prune away a name a night for like a week UGH!!!), I wondered if he really liked it too, or if he was just humoring me because he knew it was my favorite. I finally told him, "If you don't really like the name, then please veto it now because I really want it and you are just teasing me!". Turns out, he really did like the name, and it eventually became the one we chose! As for a middle name, I knew I wanted to try and choose another biblical name (since we did not go with any of Eric's first name choices, ahem). I asked Eric if he wanted to use his middle name, Joseph. He liked that idea, so there you have Graham Joseph!

added 5/7/10:
I'm going to be adding this to Kelly's Blog Carnival about baby names, so I thought I'd add in how we picked Leah's name since she's joined our family since I wrote this post.

As usual, I began looking at baby names as soon as I found out I was pregnant, but Eric wouldn't talk about anything until we found out what we were having. Truth be told, I had a girl named picked out pretty early, with some close seconds, but no boy name that I just loved. When we found out we were having a girl it still took me awhile to get Eric to commit to talking about names. I had fallen in love with the name Delilah. I just thought it was a really cute name, and we could even shorten it to Lila if we so chose, even though I'm usually not a fan of nicknames. Eric wasn't crazy about the name, be he could see how much I liked it, so I think he was trying to let it grow on him. We tried thinking of possible middle names to go with it, but couldn't agree on anything. Eric didn't like that even though the name was biblical, it wasn't after a so great biblical character. So I thought that perhaps we could choose another biblical name for the middle name that was "better". We brainstormed more biblical names and both really liked Leah, but Delilah Leah just did NOT cut it lol. Slowly I began to see how much Eric really didn't care for Delilah, and I really started liking Leah more and more. I was a little hesitant to use it because it's also the name of Eric's brother's fiance's sister. Eric didn't seemed bothered in the least by this and he soon convinced me it was ok. So we decided we'd look for middle names to go with Leah. We had a few, but both liked Katelyn. We slept on that name for a while before we declared it her name. So while we broke tradition slightly (biblical first name instead of middle), I'm really happy with our name choice for our 4th baby!