What's in a Name?

A lot. A whole freaking lot. I mean, it's not like you can just pick a name for a child and then a couple years down the road decide, ehhhh I'm not a fan of that name anymore, I think I'm going to change it. Well, I guess you could, but then people, such as myself, would judge you. Serious judgement and definitely some gossip and smack talk. So our goal is to avoid that 2 year "what were we thinking" thing...if there really is such a thing. For us we want to pick a name that sounds strong, is somewhat uncommon, but not something crazy like Orangejello, or whatever that name was that I heard recently. I want a name that is cute when they are little and yet will sound professional when they are older. So how do you just decide on a name? I mean, there are a million trillion names in the world to choose from and somehow you have to narrow it down to ONE...well, I guess you kind of get 2 choices if you put serious thought into the middle name too. Honestly, the middle name to us really just needs to sound good with the first and last name, but we're not just going to pick any old name either. With Malachi it was just weird. At some point during our marriage Brian was going through the Concordance for one of his masters classes and he just said, "Malachi. I like that name." I agreed, it was decided that if we were to ever have a boy we would name him Malachi. Both strong and cute, sounded good with our last name and means "messenger of God"...how could we go wrong with that? We couldn't...and we didn't (in our very unbiased opinion) and fortunately we still like, though others may disagree. However, it has become more popular, or I'm just noticing it more since I have my own kid with that name. Anyway, going into a pregnancy with a name already picked out makes naming your second son a WHOLE lot more challenging. And what I don't like is finding out that it's a boy and having his name be John Doe Lohrey because we can't agree or think of anything better. Slacking. We've had at least a dozen names that we've both liked, but with every name came a reason or 2 to not like it, mostly being that I could see myself wanting to change his name in 2 or 3 years, in some cases probably earlier. Names...names...names. Decisions...decisions...decisions. I also hate knowing that I still have about 20 weeks to go and within that time I could completely fall in love with another name and then would have to be like, "sorry everyone, I know we WERE going to name our son blah blah Lohrey, but now we have changed our minds to this this Lohrey." So yes, this whole "name game" is important, and not nearly as fun and stress-free as I thought it would be when I was a naive, not quite married, definitely not close to pregnancy, daydreaming "mom to be". Admit it girls, we've dreamed of naming our kids since who knows when. Either that or changing our names to something else. For the longest time I can remember I wanted to change my name to Kimberly, nickname Kimmie. Don't really remember the reason behind it, but I remember wanting my name to be changed. Sorry, got side tracked...aka: pregnancy brain. Anyway, a lot of time, countless hours of internet searching, lots of text messages and emails for suggestions, and quite a few anxiety attacks have gone into naming this 2nd child. If this is God's "heads up" for what life with this kid is going be like, we're in for quite the ride. However, thankfully, he will have a name: Xavier ________ Lohrey. We are currently in negotiations on the middle name and are also taking suggestions.

Disclaimer: we reserve the right to change this kids name at any point during this pregnancy and until the kid is born and/or the birth certificate is completed AND signed. If this happens, we promise to update people immediately.