Names are everything

Getting pregnant is fun.

Naming the baby after you have had your fun is not. It is one of the great, tortuous activities any marriage can experience and hopefully survive.

There is a reason why women are pregnant for 9 months. It takes that long for husband, wife, in-laws, and close friends to approve of what this little bundle of joy will be called. And then after all that work, baby gets a nickname.

Anna and I began our quest for the perfect name by purchasing books of names. This was before the internet, computers, or the advent of couples putting thought into the names of the children. Somehow, Chastity, Heather, Chad, and other names like that, left us cold.

My desire was to name my children with two goals in mind: First, I wanted to name my child something grand. So, I looked to the theologians I was reading and I noticed that anyone of note had three names before the last name. There was John R.W. Stott; D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Anna promptly vetoed that idea. She felt making our child fill out government forms the rest of their lives with such legal names would be a burden too great to bear.

More than that, those long names were probably family heirlooms, and looking back into our family, things were pretty sparse. My dad was named "J.L." That's all. Nothing else. Apparently during the depression his parents were too poor to afford a proper name. Imagine going through the Marines with your dogtag saying "J(only)L(only)Chancellor". It would not be long before he was called "Jonly Lonly Chancellor." So, back another generation and we picked up "Pickens." That was my grandfather's name and it always sounded too much like something else as in, "What is he doing?" "He's pickens his nose."

Anna's side was not much better. "Barnhill" was pretty much a non-starter for me. Naming your child "Barnhill" is what gets you murdered in your bed. A good attorney could get the kid off for that offense, as well they should.

So, that idea was vetoed. The next was not.

The other criteria I had was that what ever we named our child, it had to scream well.

I believe in "total depravity" and I believe we see it best in our children. There is not anything a child will not do, try, taste, or say. So, occasionally it becomes necessary to raise one's voice with emphasis. Years ago we called it screaming. I did not want to give my child a name that would not scream well. I had noticed the only time my middle name was ever used was when I was in trouble and being screamed at.(With three boys, that happened a lot--which may be where my hearing loss first started)

So, bottom line, I wanted names that I would not trip over when I needed to raise my voice with emphasis. Little did we know that we would have two boys, and such an endeavor would occasionally be necessary in the rarest of situations.

I won that argument. They are not grand names, but they do scream well. In marriage, 50% is always a win.