What's In a Name?

Bryan asked me the other day if I liked Cooper's name. I didn't answer right away. Bryan, while holding a sleeping Cooper, said that he did. I feel kind of bad that I didn't say "Yes, of course, I love his name!" I know that we're not going to change it at this point and that I will probably be used it to it eventually, but I'm not quite there yet.

We had a terrible time coming up with the names of both of our boys. With Peter we had a great girl name picked out (we still have it and still like it) but no boy name. We chose not to find out if Peter was a boy or a girl until he was born, and because we couldn't agree on a boy name, I joked that that meant it must be a boy. Peter was due on Christmas Eve. On December 23 we went to see The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I love the books and while sitting there watching the movie I started thinking about what a wonderful character Peter Pevensie was. You know, great older brother, strong moral compass, High King of Narnia, etc. Anyway, it was there in the movie theater that I really thought that the baby's name might be Peter. I floated the idea to Bryan and he didn't like it at first. Neither of us like Pete so much, so we were apprehensive to use the name Peter. But it wouldn't leave my mind. About an hour before Peter was born Bryan looked at me and said "I think the baby's name is Peter." I said I thought so too.

Brand new Peter

As far as the Pete thing goes, if he chooses to use the nickname Pete when he's older, then that is up to him, but we will call him Peter. And we will let other people know that it's Peter. Except for my Grandma Bonnie, who's the only person allowed to call him Petey, as in sweetie Petey.

The funny thing is, even though I'm the one that suggested the name Peter, it took me months to be used to having a child by that name. Is that weird? Peter was a name that I had always liked, but not one that I had ever had on my short list of future children's names. Of course, now I love it and I know that it suits him perfectly, but it took me some time to get to that point.

When we found out we were having another boy we began looking for names again. The only boy name Bryan really likes is Jack. I like it too, but he has a cousin named Jack and I'm not a fan of repeating names within a family. Yes, lots of people do it, I just think it would be too confusing. Also, Jack has gotten fairly popular, and I try to shy away from the trendy names. Anyway, I would spend hours searching baby naming sites and looking through our baby name book waiting for inspiration to strike. Nothing. The Sunday before Cooper was born I was at it again. This time I had a pad of paper to see how the various first names looked with the middle and last name. (We had already agreed to use Bryan's grandpa's name as the middle name.) I wrote down two names: Conrad and Cooper. I don't remember why I put Conrad on the list, but I liked the meaning of Cooper. Not so much the denotation (barrel maker) as the connotation (someone who understands and is willing to work hard to accomplish a task). Bryan looked at them and didn't really say anything. I thought that meant he liked both. Turns out that he only liked one of them. A few days later when Cooper was born and the nurse asked us if we had a name picked out Bryan looked at me, shrugged, and said "Cooper?"

Brand new Cooper

I do like his name, really. It's just the same thing that I went through with Peter, I simply never imagined myself having a child named Cooper. I can't imagine not having him though, which I think is a good step toward being completely comfortable with his name.