One of the most amazing privileges of having children is being able to choose a name for them. In my college days, English major that I was, I envisioned naming any future children after literary characters that I loved. Or giving them names with a meaning in English. Or choosing some interesting name from another language. Every now and then I'd think something like this: "Ooh. I like the name Carraway for a son-- Nick Carraway is such a great character." Other names I've always liked: Scout, Justice, Milagros, Banner, Pilgrim...
And then I got married, and I got a taste of what it is to revise your previous dreams to make new ones with your husband, who definitely was not an English major and did not appreciate all the, ahem, creativity. Even in naming our dog we ran into what would become our classic battle: he said all the names I liked were weird hippie names, and I thought all the names he liked were boring.
After a while it became sort of fun to see why we would reject each other's choices. Dirk: Seth? No way. It makes me think of brown. Me: Blake? It sounds too much like flake. Flaky Blakey.
Add on to this the fun challenge of finding one that sounded good with our last name (which, don't get me wrong, I love! I like having a unique name!), and I really wondered if we would ever find something that would work for our first son.
After months of going around and around, we looked at some Dutch names. We figured why not embrace the last name and give the boy a chance to blend in if he ever wanted to go to the Netherlands... or South Africa... It would be a neat way to have a name similar to his dad's but not exactly the same. And so we finally decided on Hendrik, the Dutch version of Henry. The name means "home ruler," and we pray that he would be a godly man and a leader in his home someday. His middle name is James, which honestly we chose because we had been looking for a Bible name and liked how it sounded together. The history of the name Henry is pretty cool, too, since it was taken to England by the French during the Norman Conquest. As my maiden name was Norman, I feel tied to greatness right there.
Fast forward to finding out son #2 was on the way. We sort of half heartedly went through name lists again, mostly rejecting each other's. And then to our surprise we happened across the name Levi, which we both really liked. It means "joined together in harmony," which I feel is an apt description of our marriage and our little family right now. I also really like the Hebrew/Spanish/Dutch pronunciation (Leh-vee). Dirk liked it for those reasons and also because he saw it on a list of names that are currently popular in the Netherlands. So, you know, a strong Hebrew name for a little American boy who's also got lots of Dutch in him. We chose Thomas for the middle name, liking how it sounds, and also how Jesus was so gracious to Thomas in the Bible and helped him believe. We pray little Levi will be a strong man who runs to the Father for help and through whom peace and harmony flow to others.
So. Even I admit it's probably a good thing I wasn't left alone to choose names for our boys. One of them might have ended up as Carraway! Yikes. Hmm, that makes me realize, I never did explore all the options in the spice cabinet... Maybe if we are blessed again I can talk Dirk into an edible name. :)