What a Name says FIRST...

What a Name Says FIRST...

Lucas and his namesake, my brother, Jacob (Jake)

Choosing a name is hard. Clinton and I knew that whatever we picked, our kid would be stuck with for the rest of their life. Not to mention the inevitability of whatever nick-names would come with the name we chose!

We'd already decided that we were going to learn the sex of our baby... We are logical people, and to us, it was logical decision to find out. I wanted to pick out a name before our 20-week anatomy ultrasound, so when we heard "It's a..." we'd have a name to immediately associate with our son or daughter. I was strongly determined not to call our child "it", "him" or "her" for the duration of my pregnancy, I wanted a name solidly decided upon, so in true Brandi fashion, I began to research.

The baby-naming process started out with me making a list of all of the names I liked, for both boys and girls. Taking into consideration all of the possible nick-names, my list was quite short. Since I was little, I had it in my heart to give my first-born son a name that would be strong, masculine, and really mean something to me. When I found out I was pregnant, the first thing that came to mind was Jacob, which is the name of my brother. I talked to Clinton, and he agreed to have our baby's middle name be Jacob, should he be a boy. 

Clinton always liked the name Lillian, and had wanted a daughter to be named as such. However, my great-Grandmother was named Lillian, and my uncle had already named his daughter Lillian (though we call her Lilli), so I agreed that Lillian would make a nice middle name for a girl. 

So, great... we had two middle names, but nothing to actually call our kid! So from the list of names I'd chosen, I asked Clinton to pick which he liked best. Boy options were Andrew (Andy or Drew acceptable nicknames), Joshua (or Josh!), and Lucas (or Luke), and girl names included Colleen (no nickname), Emmalee (Spelled this way to honor my grandma, Barbara Emma, and my family tradition of the middle name Lee), or Anna. In the end, the only two that really stuck were Lucas Jacob, and Colleen Lillian. Clinton and I were both happy with these options, and when we heard, "It's a boy!" I looked at Clinton and said, "That's our son, Lucas!" and began calling "the baby" Lucas from then on out. 

We have continued to call Lucas by his full name, through we like "Luke" a lot, too. There are some friends and family who do call him "Luke", which we don't mind at all. We figure that if or when he decides to be called "Luke", then it is his rightful decision.

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