If Kindle were to name the baby...

Lots to write, but for now just wanted to jot down some of the names Kindle has come up with today for our baby:

• Markie (after her buddy Mark @church)
• Baby Ruth (she thinks she made this up and she and Armour had no clue what I was talking about when I told them that is a candy bar...)
• Key
• Bruland (Sister Bruland is Armour's Sunbeams teacher...not a bad name for a boy though.)

There were more, but those the the ones I coudl remember.

Trendsetter?! AKA-Kindle's stolen name...

OK, so I was trying to check and see if you could easily find my blog in a blog search just now (I check once in a while to make sure it is not easy. If it is too easy, I will go private). Anyway, in my search, I tried searching for Kindle Catherine and found a blog that someone in Spokane had written about the names announced in the births in Spokane recently, and she wrote

"Trends in the making?: Sydney Lynn, Sydney Rose, Kindle Catherine, Kindyl Mayson

An older classic and a new version of Kendall that plays on the trend toward verb names – I could see these going places. Or just weird that two kids in Spokane would be named Kindle/Kindyl in the same week "

So, evidently someone else in Spokane named their kid Kindle (Kindyl) the same dang week we named our Kindle. So, I looked up that kids birth info on the newspaper website, and found she was born at the other hospital in town 4 days after Kindle was born, and all I can say is...they totally stole our name!!! Granted they changed the spelling, but what the...

Why can't the unique names we slave over coming up with just stay unique?! Why must people steal them and make them common? I will be so pissed if Kindle ends up on the top 1000 this year...

Of names and birthdays...

Well, I know many were surprised by our choice of name for our girl, probably mainly because it is not one we mentioned much. But, I just thought I would give you all the 411 on the beautiful name Kindle Catherine. If you have read any of the previous blogs about names here, you should be aware that I have 2 major requirements for our children's names. 1-Unique (as in can't have been on the SSA top 1000 name in the past 100 years), and 2- has to be meaningful. All of our children have one "unique" name and one "normal" name, and all the "normal" names have been family names (OK-let's be honest, our first 3 kid's normal names are all from their parents-Solace REBEKAH, STEVEN Enderton, & Armour WESLEY...).

So, how did we get to Kindle Catherine?! I am sure you wonder what happened to the other names. Up until recently my top choice was Tamsin (unique and meaningful as it is a female form of Thomas and she would have been named after Wesley's youngest brother). Wesley's top choice as been Rosette, Solace's was Robette (meaning a small robe), Ender's was purplepotomus, and Armour, well, I think Armour would likely have gone with "Jorj".

While I was pregnant and we were trying to determine the name we talked a lot about how she seemed to be a really fiery personality. She was so active and just seemed fiery, so we started to look up word related to fire. The name Kimball was already on our short list, and we thought about the name Kindle, meaning to set fire to or ignite. We thought it was perfect. It quickly moved up our list as a name we liked. Add to that the fact that we had decided months ago, well before Cathy's death, that we were going to give our daughter the middle name of Catherine after Cathy. Now obviously there is a great alliteration with Kindle Catherine, so when it came down to it, that is what we liked the best and went with.

As far as her birthday, I have been accused of stacking the decks to that Solace (and Heidi of course) would win the blog birthday pool. I just want to say that I did not choose the day. When I was at the doctor's office a few weeks back he told me he would induce me a couple weeks early based on the baby's size and the fact that I am moving May 31st. However, he said some of his partners would not induce that early, so we had to make sure to schedule it the day he was on call. That just happened to be the 13th. So that's when it was scheduled. Granted I was pretty psyched to have a girl with a 13 birthday just like me-I won't forget her birthday anytime soon!

We love our new little Kindle and the more I get used to her name, the more I like it!

SSA Names 2007

OK, so evidently today the Social Security Administration released the list of most popular names from last year. Check out this article about the names. Or just go browse the top 1000 here. FYI-non of our kids names are on the list still! Yeah for unique names...

Names, Names, Names...AHHHHH

OK, so not to revisit this name thing over and over (and over and over....) but here is the name saga as it stands now. As many of you know, and as I have mentioned in previous blogs, I have some definite ideas about the names my children get named. Namely, they must be unique, and they would (preferably) have some meaning or significance. The unique thing is the big, huge one!!! It is big enough that Wes and I always go though this whole process in choosing them.

Before I explain that, I should mention that the Social Security Administration has a website that tells you the most popular baby names for the previous year in the US based on the Social Security cards issued for new babies. It also has a place where you can see the popularity of a name from any (or all) year(s) in the past 100 years. (If you want to check out what I mean, click here.) So, this process Wes and I go through in choosing our kids names is that we come up with names we love that seem unique to us, then we go to that site and check to see if those names have ever been on the SSA's top 1000 names anytime in the past 100 years. So far, none of our children's names have been in the top 1000 names anytime in the past 100 years.

At this point (if in fact you have made it this far in this story) you might be thinking, "What the heck is wrong with Beckee that she is so concerned with having SUCH unique names for her kids?" This is a question that I myself have thought a lot about recently, and I think the answer stems back to my elementary school days. For one thing, I NEVER have any school classes without at least one other "Becky/Rebecca" in it. This would have been OK (not ideal, but OK), if it hadn't been for my 4th grade teacher. That class was a particularly Beckee/Rebecca filled class. There were I believe 5 of us in there. All of us were named Rebecca, and all of us went by Becky. This was confusing and unacceptable to my teacher, and since none of us would willingly go by any other name but Becky, our teacher decided to assign us names, yes...assign us names. One was lucky enough to be Becky, one Becca, one Rebecca, (I cannot remember what the 4th had to go by), and I, the 5th, was assigned Reba. That's right, Reba. A name I had never been called, and a name I did not like. I obviously refused to be assigned a name like that, and began experimenting with different spelling options for Becky (I believe it was Beki that whole year. It wasn't until 9th grade that I settled on Beckee). This spelling change has been my only unique feature of my first name since then. This common name thing only got worse, much, MUCH worse when I married a Johnson. Now I had a common first and last name. (As a matter of fact, when I got married I was working as a teacher on a temporary drama project in an elementary school, and there were 2 other teachers named Becky Johnson working there as well.) So, I think that is why the unique thing has been such a big deal...(Also, I should note that I am aware that having a unique name is not always everyone's favorite thing as they get older, so we have given all three kids common names as well in case they decide to break my heart and go by some other name than the ones Wes and I painstakingly chose for them.)

So, now that you are caught up on the psyche of Beckee and the reasons I want unique (or to quote High School Musical 2 that we just watched before bed time-I need something inspiring to help me get along...I need FABULOUS!!!). This is the deal with our names right now. Since I had Solace, there have been many names I have come across that I LOVED and wanted to name my next girl. Some of the names have become unusable (like for example, Paris-obviously now you cannot name a child that thanks to that Hilton terror). There is one name that I was pretty much totally set on, and Wes also liked it. So, I pretty much thought we were done with the name game stress. Oh boy was I wrong!!!

The other day I was at a playgroup with a couple women here discussing the name I love. One of the other women is also pregnant with a girl, and due in 6 weeks. She and her husband also happen to be good friends of ours. so, I was talking about this name of mine, and she mentioned that the name is also the name her husband wants to name their child. Immediately this puts a damper on the name for me, but does not totally count it out yet-just because they like it too doesn't mean it is super popular. Then my friend said "We looked it up on the Social Security page and saw it was like 30 most popular name, so we figured you and Wes would never use it anyway." OK-now it was out and I was devastated. And I realized that I had skipped the crucial step of checking the SSA page in my baby name decision this time. After spending the next 2 nights literally waking up with nightmares about the baby not having a name, Wes and I sat down with the laptop and got on the SSA page. ALL 4 OF OUR TOP FOUR NAMES ARE ON THERE!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHH....SO, now we are branching out and have a list of about 15-20 possible other names for baby, but none of them are clicking for me as much as my favored name (or any of the other 3 in the top 4). So, there you go-my name trauma! Will this child have a unique name? Will it be one I like? Will I go crazy thinking about this?! Probably...

What's in a Name?!

So, every time I get pregnant (and even sometimes when I am not pregnant), I think about names. What will I name this child?! Well before I even know if it is a girl or a boy, I generally already have thought of a number of names. Of course at this point, I have definite requirements for names, the main one being that they need a unique name. I just cannot imagine going around saying "These are my kids, Solace, Ender, Armour, and Bob." Just doesn't really fit with the rest does it?!

My other requirement has been that their name has to mean something. This requirement has becomes harder and harder to fulfill. Solace Rebekah-Solace means peace & comfort, and Rebekah is named (not spelled thought) after her mama. Steven Enderton-Steven after his dad, both his grandpa's, an uncle, & a great-uncle, and Enderton after my maiden name. He's basically a walking tribute to my dad... :) Armour Wesley-Admitedly "Armour" doesn't have the meaning behind it that I had hoped for in a unique name, but it was a unique name that Wes and I both really liked (and stole from a professor of Wesley's), and Wesley, is obviously after his papa.

So far, all the names we have used are ones Wesley has come up with. Thank goodness I listened to him! Otherwise Solace would be Paris (this was before Paris Hilton really became famous). And if I had been choosing, I would have a boy named Creighton by now (but now that we are going to be living in Omaha for another 4 years-do I really want a Creighton? It is not so unique of a name there.)

I have a few ideas for this baby-all very cute and unique, some with great meaning, others are just names I love (like Armour was). This is your chance to voice your opinion. Please feel free to add your ideas to ours using the comments option on this blog. (Andrea-if your husband is submitting names, they may need to be sensored through you first, I know how Jeremy gets when he is coming up with "unique" names!) :)

Let the names flow in, and remember-you can leave comments on this blog even without a google sign in. It will be left as "anonymous" though, so please leave your name in the comment somewhere. Just so I know who to thank for the wonderful ideas! :)