What's in a Name?

Kelly @ kellyskornerblog.com is doing a "Show Us Your Life" kid's names version.

Owen Robert, our first-born son, was born on December 22, 2004. He was many "firsts" to our family: our first son, the first grandchild on my side of the family, the first great-grandchild on my mother's side of the family, and the first grandchild of my husband's mother and father. He was and is truly a blessing to us.

From the moment I found out that I was pregnant with Owen, I dreamed of my brown-eyed, brown-hair in pig-tails little girl. We had decided that her name would be Megan Ann. Megan is just a name that we both liked, and Ann is my middle name, as well as my mom, my sister, my aunt, and my mother-in-law's middle name. I was literally devastated when we found out that we would be welcoming a boy into the world. We had not decided on a boy's name, and quite frankly, all the names that I liked, were already taken by members of my family. Jeremy liked the name Owen; I hated it. We bickered about it for months. I suppose it grew on me over time. Owen's middle name is Robert, which is after my dad. My dad means the world to me (and to Owen!), and I couldn't think of a better way to honor him.

Evan Thomas is our second son, and was born on September 22, 2009 (do you see a pattern here?!?) I had a feeling from the beginning of this pregnancy that we would be having another boy, and that was 100% fine with me. After having one boy and seeing how much fun they are, I didn't have my heart set on either gender. If he had been a girl, we actually had two names picked out: Megan Ann and Claire Elizabeth. The second name is a combination of family names: Clair is my paternal grandfather, and Elizabeth is my maternal grandmother's middle name. I am not really sure how we decided on Evan. We both liked the name, and the fact that it is a short name with little opportunity for shorter nicknames. Thomas was chosen from Jeremy's family. His middle name is Sellard, which was his great-grandfather's first name. I did not want to carry on Sellard in my son's name, so we did the next best thing - we used Sellard's middle name.

If, and that is a BIG "IF", we would ever have any more kids, I think a girl would be Claire Elizabeth because of the family legacy. For a boy, I really don't know. I like the names Ethan and Ryan, but both are taken by close family members. I guess we'd be in a bit of a pickle if we would have another boy to name!