What's in a Name

One thing I really love hearing about is why people decided to name their children what they did. Truly, naming a child is a stressful experience because there's so much to consider: initials, monogram, any weird nicknames, how it sounds with your last name. And if you're a teacher, then there are also so many names that belong to former students, and that brings up a lot of its own feelings. And if all this is not stressful enough, consider that I read somewhere once that when you name your child, you are giving them the name by which God will call them for all eternity. 

Oh, okay, cool. No pressure then. 

Today I thought I would share with you why we decided to name our children what we did, and I hope you will share, too! 

Robert David

Being our first child, this was the first real chance Joe and I had to share with each other what names we liked. As you can imagine, there were names he really liked where I was like "Ehh," and there were names I liked that he wasn't too thrilled about either. But one thing we both agreed on was that we loved our grandfathers. My maternal grandfather is Robert (still living), and Joe's maternal grandfather was David (he has died, and he was a wonderful man). I honestly don't remember exactly how or when we came up with Bert, but one day we just realized that was an awfully cute nickname. We liked that it was uncommon but not weird (because it's not 1950). And we thought it would suit our son more than the more common nicknames for Robert, like Bob or Robbie. The only thing holding us back from this name was that there is a slightly more famous Robert Kraft already. But we love my grandfather more than we cared about that, so Robert David "Bert" it was. 

Henry Joseph

This is probably a good time to mention that there are FOUR girls' names that I LOVE. But then I had to come up with another boy name! This time, along with all the other considerations relating to a child's name, we also had to consider how it would sound with Bert. Once again, Joe and I went back and forth, sharing our suggestions with each other, but nothing sounded right. I can't quite remember exactly how or when, but the name Hank was suggested. We loved how it sounded with Bert, and we also loved that, like Bert's name, it is uncommon but not unusual (again, because it's not 1950). Although Hank was the name we wanted, we also wanted to give him a "real" name and not just name him a nickname, so Henry is his real name. After thinking for a while, we decided to give him the middle name Joseph because Bert's name has such a strong family connection, we wanted Hank to have a connection, too. So we gave him the middle name Joseph after Joe, and we also thought it was fitting because in the Catholic Church, this year is the year of Saint Joseph. 

So there are the stories of Bert and Hank, two boys who are aptly named to spend their senior years drinking .50 coffee at McDonald's at 6 a.m.!

Some funny things:

- While I remember that Bert's real name is Robert, I am not joking at all when I tell you that 99% of the time I completely forget Hank's name is actually Henry. 

- The week we decided to name Bert Robert Kraft was the same week that the first Robert Kraft was arrested for his indiscretion, and the week we decided to name Hank Hank was the week Hank Aaron died. So if we have another child and you're a celebrity with the same name, you might want to watch out!