What Are We Going to Name That Kid?



My wife and I are expecting our second child sometime towards the end of October. We’re doing what most parents do during the months of incubation where the former zygote assumes a more human/less tadpole form inside my wife’s ever-expending-but-still-dead-sexy-stomach—we’re trying to name our forthcoming tax break. With our first son, Elijah, we pretty much had his named picked from the start. This bipedal poop factory is turning out to be more difficult to name, especially in the girl’s names department. The difficulty is not so much in finding names we like, but in finding names with meaning (that we like). This is important to us. We want our children’s names to be a declaration of belief. Our son Elijah’s name means, “YHWH is God” or “YHWH is my God.” This is a declaration of our faith. But we don’t want their names to be declarations of our faith only.

We want it to be a declaration of their faith as well. When Elijah is old enough to understand I’ll explain to him that every time he says his name, writes his name, or sees his name, that he is speaking something about his very nature, about his roots and his faith. My only hope is that his life will be a reflection of his name. Names in Scripture defined who you were. Today we define ourselves by what we do, not by who we are, by our accomplishments, not our character. I’m not horribly concerned with what our children do with their respective careers. If they want to work in a diaper wipe factory then so be it. While I of course want the best for them both, all I ultimately care about is that they live up to the names that they are given.

Now do you see why it’s so difficult to pick out a name? 

4 comments:

Brad Polley said...

How about Lo-Ruhammah?

mike-daddy said...

How about Frances, it means Psycho. Elijah won't be able to touch him.

Brad Polley said...

well played by the pater familias.

matt said...

yes, that was good use of a movie quote.