Naming kids has always been a challenge. I make it hard! Not only must Katherine and I both love the name, but the meaning of the name must also have significance. While the first stipulation is challenging, the additional need for meaning makes the naming process almost impossible. This was compounded by the fact that we didn’t know the gender so we had to come up with two names.
Girl names were easy as we had already identified two that we liked when we had hunted for our first son’s name. A boy’s name was much more challenging. We had labored (snicker) intensively over our first son’s name and in anticipation of the upcoming struggle of finding a boy’s name. So I scheduled a date at Barnes and Nobles where we drank coffee and poured (he he) over books of names for two hours. We left with a tentative boy’s name. We left feeling productive (no stop, you’re making my sides hurt!) with two first names for girls and a first and middle name for a boy.
As we got closer to d-day (“delivery” day) we began to think more about possible middle names for girls. Katherine had suggested Kate while we were on our Barnes and Nobles date. I was not convinced. I threw out a name "Belle" for which Katherine didn’t care for at first, but after “checking” it with some of her friends she declared that she liked it.
About a month from d-day we began to tell our friends that we were leaning toward Gabrielle for a girl. At some point, we both agreed that we preferred Gabrielle (French) to Gabriella (Spanish). I thought the name was pretty while Katherine thought it was spunky. We both liked the meaning, “God is my strength,” and the fact that having a Gabrielle would round-out our family collection of archangel names (Michael and Gabriel; I guess we aren’t counting Lucifer), but we were undecided about the middle name. We thought Kate went well with Gabriella, but not as well with Gabrielle.
A week from d-day we realized that I liked strong middle names which Katherine says caused me to pick masculine middle names like Roussou, Striker, Blaze, and Bruce (well maybe not the last one). I then was able to articulate that I liked middle names that connoted royalty . . . or names of ships in Her Majesties Royal Navy. I also liked middle names that would allow for nicknames. Luke is my “little lion.” I taught him to roar by the time he was twenty months old. I want Luke to be bold and fearless as a lion. I want all of my kids to have nicknames that can be an added personality to their character.
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