Show and Tell Tuesday: Baby Names

A few of the blogs that I read are sharing baby names today and since I haven't looked through pictures from our weekend yet, I thought I would join in!

I'm sure I've shared these stories before, so I'm sorry if you already know them!

I LOVE thinking about names. I named numerous "children" throughout middle school, high school, and college and had my favorites ready and reserved. When we found out we were expecting James I immediately set to work thinking of a name for him. One of my favorite boy names before marrying Eddie was "Ben." Our last name, Fresh, made that one null and void before we ever started. A few other names were immediately vetoed for various reasons. I vividly remember looking at Eddie's list and seeing the name "Dude" on it. Someone was obviously taking it seriously.

We finally decided on a boy's name and a girl's name: 

James Elliott and Sara Catherine.

James is Eddie's granddaddy's name. He was a junior and had a son who was also a James who didn't pass the name along to his son so we took over that name. I loved that we passed the name along, but it took me a long time to settle on calling him James. It sounded stuffy and old-man to me. We never settled on calling him anything else and honestly, from the minute he was born, he was James. He IS an old man in a little body and it really fits him perfectly. There were hardly any little boys named James when we named him (that we knew) and now we hear it all the time!

Elliott is a family name on my mom's side. It's my middle name and I knew I wanted to pass it down one way or another. James isn't thrilled with it (he likes Will's middle name...grass is greener), but I didn't love it growing up either. I like how unusual it is and I love using last names for first and middle names.

Sara was just a name that we liked. We would've called James "Sara Cate" had he been a girl. We both just wanted a double name for a girl and that was our favorite. Catherine is Anna's middle name. I've always loved Catherine with a C and I LOVE the name Cate.

We learned something when we were naming James - people are going to tell you what they think about a baby's name and until it is assigned to a baby they will give you ALL kinds of opinions about it. I don't think people even realize it. I can remember being told by one family member that she HATED James and would NEVER call a child that. Hmmm. So with Will we decided to wait until after he was born to ANNOUNCE his name. And our selection process with him was a bit different. We had used Eddie's mom's family name and my mom's family name so we went to our dads' sides with Will. James was 2 when I was pregnant and he wanted nothing more than a brother named George. Fortunately, Santa sent us an Elf on the Shelf named George (not because we didn't like George, it was just not on our top five) so James was happy with that. I gave James our list of five names just to see what he could/couldn't say and he got stuck on Will. He told everyone that his baby's name was "Wheel." We finally settled on it, too. His middle name is Edward, which is obviously Eddie's name. It's a family name as well. 

Will would've been "Anna Catherine" but called "Anna Cate" if he had been a girl. Thankfully he wasn't because his BEST BEST girl in the whole world is Anna Cate. 

We love both boys' names. They both REALLY suit them. James is currently #13 on the names list in the U.S. and William is #5.

Other names that we liked were Jackson, Jack, Jacob, Sam, Austin, and Henry. If I knew today that I was having a little girl I would probably put Madeline, Elizabeth, Abbey, Allie, or Grace on my list. Family girl names that I like are Bowen, Raleigh, and Cora. I still love Anna Catherine, but I would probably relinquish and let my sister use it. It is her name, I guess. ;) 

Names are so much FUN!