What’s in a Name?
Posted by lynnontop on October 6, 2009
Ok – Junior, our little Peanut, is 3 weeks old now. And we’re just officially announcing his name.
When he was first born, we had a name picked out. S used the name fairly regularly in the first days, but I found myself not using it at all. It felt strange to use it. Suddenly I understood why some cultures hold off officially naming their child for 8 days. I asked S about it and she was feeling similarly. Every time she started to say his name, she wanted to say Dillon instead. Hmmm Dillon – he kind of looked like a Dillon. Maybe I could get over my earlier feelings about the name (Dylan being so 90210 and popular in the 1990’s made it seem overused and past its best-before date). I also thought he might look like an Emmett. So we tried these names out at home over the next few days, and told our family and friends that his name was still being sorted. Over the following weeks, we also looked at Brodie, Lachlan, Jasper/Jesper… yes, all a bit odd perhaps. But whatever.
Also, when we took him out to breastfeeding clinics, the first time the nurses read his name they mispronounced it. They made it sound like we named him as an homage to the Ku Klux Klan. That added fuel to our “maybe this isn’t his name after all” feelings.
So, we’ve been using these different names with him. Late last week, S had a day of calling him by the name we originally gave him. The next day she switched to calling him Dillon again (we had already dropped Emmett by then). And this time it was clear to me that Dillon wasn’t his name. His name was the one we originally gave him. Full circle. S agreed.
Overall, we think the problem was a) we had become accustomed to calling him Junior, since before he was even conceived, and it was hard to make the switch and b) the name doesn’t quite capture how super cute he is.
With mild chagrin, we will be sending out an email to friends and family announcing his name – again.
