Origins of name...

One of my favorite questions to ask new moms is "Where did you get the name?" I am really quite horrible at remembering names (I often need to be reminded on several occasions before it sticks) but sometimes knowing how they got it in the first place galvanizes it in my memory; it's also usually interesting to find out about the deceased relative, favorite character from a book (Barry Manilow song in my case), etc. People have such varied and interesting reasons for selecting the names they do. So I thought I'd explain the names in our family, particularly since we have made Max so confusing to so many (my pediatrician still calls him Joshua everytime I go in).

Kennedy Reese: Jonathan and I were at Costco in Provo (dating, not even engaged), when a darling little girl, long blonde curls, probably age four, went dashing down the aisle as her mother hollered after her "Kennedy!!!" It was love at first hearing. I knew right then and there that my first daughters name would be Kennedy. Roughly around this same time the movie Sweet Home Alabama was out (on the big screen or DVD I can't recall) featuring Reese Witherspoon. Having just returned from serving my mission in Alabama, I rather enjoyed the movie and was reminded how much I enjoy Reese as an actress....hence the moniker of my first child was born.

Macy Cleo: This name came about in kind of reverse order. Jonathan declared after Kennedy was born, that our next daughter (should there be a next) would have Cleo in her name. Why?? Because "Grandma Cleo is an upright Christian woman possessing all the noble traits we could ever wish for in a daughter" (or something like that). Well I couldn't argue with him, Grandma Cleo is an angel even if she's declared on a hundred or more occasions that she's methodist born and bred and will most definitely finish out her life as a methodist dead. At the time, our neighbor down the street had a sweet little pup named Cleo too, and I just couldn't bring myself to give my baby the name as her first. Having decided Cleo would be in the middle, I needed a name retro enough that it would seem to fit well with it. We moved to Texas from Louisiana mid-pregnancy (I had only six weeks left) and I discovered Macy was an anchorwoman for a local broadcast of the nightly news. Seemed like a good fit, and I was running out of time to decide. So Macy Cleo came to be.

Joshua Max: You know him as "Max" and that's exactly how we intended it. Odd I know (my elementary school teachin' mother-in-law said I shouldn't have done it that way), but it turns out it's a family tradition. My paternal grandmother's name is Mary Diane, but she's known to all as Diane. She calls both her sons by their middle name, and I decided to continue the legacy. Cruel, maybe. I hope not though. As for the names themselves: My first mission president's name was Perry Max. I almost would have just named him that exactly, except he had a son by the same name whom I dated and am NOT married to. Might have been bothersome to my husband...but I still liked the name... Well it turns out Jonathan's maternal great grandfather's name was Max too. We really stewed and stewed over what to call this little boy, and it came right down to the wire before we decided. I must have suggested hundreds of possibilities. Apparently Jonathan just knows too many people though, because he had known a guy who did a dumb thing by the same name of every other one I suggested. We were getting nowhere. Luckily we still had Max, a name we were both happy with that had the added bonus of pleasing the extended family. My mother suggested, rather forcefully, that we follow her tradition of tacking on a name that was biblical in nature since that was the tradition she'd started with her boys. We agreed Joshua went well with Max, but for some reason Max Joshua just didn't sound as good to us.

If you have a hankering, I'd love to hear how the creative process of babynaming takes shape in your family!