Naming

Isaac's fifth birthday is in two weeks, so I've been looking back at my life five years ago. Five years ago I was 37 weeks pregnant, and in addition to worrying about impending labor, I spent a lot of time pondering baby names. (Which I also did two years ago.)

I had previously told Isaac that up until he was born, I wasn't quite sure what we would name him. (Craig says that he was already sure, however.) I think Isaac remembers a similar naming situation before Laurel was born -- although even after her birth we couldn't choose a name! But it was only recently that Isaac asked me about his other possible names.

"We considered Jasper," I said, "but it's a good thing we didn't pick it."

"You didn't know we would know another Jasper!" Isaac said in delight.*

"And I thought about Guthrie," I said.

Isaac started laughing. "That's not even a name," he managed to splutter out.

Then, after a moment more of laughter, he said, "Guthrie! That sounds so funny."

He's right.

- - - - -

As soon as I cradled my newborn boy in my arms, I knew we couldn't name him Guthrie. Although I had liked the sound of several artsy, hipster, intellectual names, they all seemed wrong once I was holding the actual human being who would have to live with them. Once they had seemed cool and unique, but suddenly they were foolish and trendy.

So we knew he was named Isaac within minutes of his birth.

- - - - -

We discussed Isaac's naming again tonight, and he laughed some more at "Guthrie." But he also said, "If you had named me that, I would be used to it by now." I thought this was insightful.

- - - - -

*Nor did I know that Jasper would be one of the vampires in the "Twilight" franchise. Worse, you may recall that Alice was one of our front-runners when we were naming Laurel, and it's also the name of a "Twilight" character! What if we had accidentally named our kids Jasper and Alice, vampires who are married?