Friday, May 28, 2010

What's in a Name

So in the past couple of weeks I have been asked how we chose Ryder's name. And names, well they can be an interesting thing.

When I was pregnant with Lucas, after we found out he was a boy; Eric and I would lay in bed at night and look through a baby name book. I would write down the names we liked and we slowly narrowed it down to Lucas. We decided not to tell any of the family though, we wanted it to be a surprise. We gave them some clues and let them guess, but we did not tell. After he was born we announced it all of the family. Eric's sister Rachel said, I love that name. Turns out she really loved it, in fact, known to the rest of the family, but for some reason not us; she and Todd had already said some day if they have a boy they would name him Lucas. Sweet Rachel did not have the heart to even tell this to us until Lucas was about 9 months old. But all is well and Lucas is Lucas and their son is Ethan and it is just right that way.

With Alex it was a bit different. Eric came with me to my ultrasound when we found out she was a girl. He started naming off a lot of great names, such as call her Jill but we will spell it XQYZ7... really "helpful" things like that. And then while walking around the room he stopped and looked at a painting, it was a cartoonish like lady with flowers in the all the appropriate spots. "How about Alexandria Taylor?" Eric asked (the name of the artist). My immediate reaction was no way! But then it grew on me and grew on me.. and hence we have an Alexandria Taylor. (Whose painting I cannot find for the life of me)

And finally Ryder. For anyone who know's Eric very well he likes to make up songs, lots and lots of silly songs. You might remember one of his stories from this post here, so just imagine that but with songs. In fact he made up a different song for almost every baby food Lucas ate. "Peas, peas we love the peas. Peas, peas, please pass the peas..." You would just have to hear it.
Anyway, Eric pretty early on began singing to my belly: "Baby RT, my number one number three." When I asked him what RT stood for, well "round three" of course. And well for some reason RT just stuck. The kids soon picked up on it and would call him RT, not knowing it stood for round three. So I began looking at R names and T names. After a few different possibilities we settled on Ryder Trent. So if you hear my kids call him RT, don't be surprised. I mostly call him Ryder but Eric and the kids call him RT.

So that is how we did it. How do you pick names?

15 comments:

  1. Oh! How sweet! Trey is "third", so no creativity there. :) I like Ryder Trent though- very cute!

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  2. It was a toss up for me between, Parker, Trevor, Trent, Damien, Quentin and Gage.

    I knew Quentin would be in there somewhere after my fav DIRECTOR Quentin Tarentino.

    There was no way he was going to a Parker, WHAT PARKER LEWIS, no way! Trevor seemed to gangsta for ma and Trent, well at the time he was the boy from that MTV show DARIA and a total loser.

    So it because Gage Quentin. Gage being the little boy from the movie pet cemetary. Gage acutally means destine for stardom, it's a coincidence that he's named after famous people. LOL

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  3. Great name stories! I get asked all the time if we're from NYC...but no ;) Gavin's middle name is Brooks, and I am Katelyn, so we just kind of put them together to come up with Brooklyn :) Cheryle was my mother-in-law's name, she passed away about a year and half before Brooklyn was born.

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  4. I love to hear how parents come up with names. We have named all of ours after Grandparents. One name from each side of the family. Our last two also have a army name one from the place where my husband was serving when she was born and one from comander that my husband admires.

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  5. All of our kids have a family name for their middle name. It started with Kristin, but it was an accident. When we found out she was a girl, we decided on Kristin Elizabeth. Later that day Rich realized and remembered that was also his grandmothers middle name. It just kind of grew from there. We mostly agreed on names. haha. If Ryan had been a girl his name would have been Grace Lynn. Rich wasn't crazy about it, but I thought it was cute. Lynn is on both sides so it worked. Joseph is all over both sides of our family. A nice way to end things. haha.

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  6. Love all the kiddos names, fun stories behind them too. Ryder Trent and RT are cute :)

    Our daughter Kendall got her name because it was the first name with both liked--her middle name Elyse was decided on at the hospital (no special reason).

    Our 2nd Peyton was off of our fave show at the time One Tree Hill (which i don't watch anymore, and can't even believe it is still on :) Anyways her middle name we also decided on at the hospital. My husband wanted it to be MacKenzie and I thought it was too long, so she is Peyton Kenzie instead. It is different, but I like it.

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  7. I love hearing how people came up with their babies names. I especially love RT. That is so fun, and such a sweet name for him! Ryder Trent. I like it.
    Keith came out of a baby name book, and his middle name is Melbourne (pronounced mel-bin) after Jeffrey's mission. Faye came about after a long time of praying about it. One morning it just came to me, I called Jeffrey, and he loved it. She was going to be named Lorelai Emma, but Lorelai means "alluring enchantress" and I couldn't do that to my daughter. So Faye (fairy princess or faith depending on which country the name comes from) and Emma after my hero Emma Smith.

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  8. Great naming stories and I love the name Ryder, even though I tend to pick more traditional names.

    I'd tell you my naming stories but with 6 kids I'd take up tons of room. I did blog about it once, not sure where now as it's been awhile since I did it.

    Any news on how Ryder is doing? And when he'll get to go home?

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  9. Love that name. Ryder - very cool!

    We get that question a lot with our boy - Calder.

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  10. Picking baby names is so much fun! I LOVE how you picked your babies' names! Such fun stories to tell each of them!

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  11. That is awesome...I love how creative y'all were at picking names and I love all their names too!

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  12. I love hearing baby name stories!!! And I wish you could have found some work by that artist! It seems like something Alex should have in her room or soemthing!

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  13. Those are some of the best baby naming stories I have ever heard! I love it!

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  14. So cute! I love everyone's different family dynamics. What a fun family you have.

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  15. I love hearing how people pick names! I think you've inspired me to do a post about this very subject! I would tell you now, but since I have 4 kids, it would take more time than I have.
    The name seems to fit, to me!

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