what’s in a name

I always love finding out the significance of people’s names.  Are they named after someone?  Did their parents make up the name?  Why did they choose to spell it that way?  Your name is your identifier – it is one thing that make you uniquely YOU.

I love the story behind my name.  I think  most of my readers are too young to remember (sorry Mom, but it’s true) the show Dallas.  In the show, there was a huge controversy:  Who shot JR?

If you are old enough to remember the show (or know just because you’re cool like that), you know that Kristen shot JR.  My parents didn’t land on that right away (my dad thought most of the names my mom suggested sounded like the names of dogs… awesome…), but my mom thought it was pretty, and thus I have my name.  (Although I think she wishes that she would have named me Caroline since it’s a family name, but I like Kristen better.)

Naming your child is much more difficult than it may seem.  First of all, we are BOTH teachers.  Teachers have this much harder than any other profession, I’m pretty sure.  You have those kids who are perfect little angels that you just love and hope your child turns out just like them.  But, you also have those kids who drive you up the wall, and you can’t stand hearing his or her name because you are constantly saying it every. single. day.  CONSTANTLY.  Yup, those are the names that don’t even make it on to the list, or if they do, they are immediately vetoed out of fear that your child might end up remotely similar to that particular child.

I really wanted our daughter’s name to be unique, to be almost exclusively hers, but to also have some significance to it.  Luckily, the significance part was easy.

Matt’s family has passed down a family name for several generations.  It was his great-grandfather’s first name, his grandfather’s middle name, his mom’s first name, and Matt’s (second) middle name.  We knew that this name would be used as our daughter’s middle name because Matt really wanted to keep the tradition going and he also wanted to pass it back to a girl, since it is a girls name.

Thus, we knew our daughter’s middle name would most definitely be Christy.  A beautiful middle name, if I do say so myself.  I was happy with it, but was having difficulties finding a first name that went well with it.  Especially since I was being particular and wanting her first name to start with an M.  We went through several M names (and several not-M names) and finally settled on 2.

My other particular naming issue was I wanted her name to have a unique spelling.  Nothing like La-a (which is pronounce La-dash-a, in case you were wondering), but something, again with significance.  But, Matt was also being particular and wanted to have a child he could nickname Mac – his nickname growing up because of his initials M. A. C. (Like I said before, he has 2 middle names.)

Sure, we could name her with an M name, throw in an Ann before Christy, and have a Mac, but I figured we could spell her name differently and she could still be our little Mac.

A beautiful name that starts with an M, is special to us, and is uniquely hers.  I’m so happy with her name and I can’t wait to see how her MacKenna personality shine through as she grows.

Does your name or kids’ names have any significance or a story behind them?  Did anyone watch “Up All Night” last night?  Jason Lee’s daughter’s name in the episode was MacKenna!  Although, I’m sure it wasn’t spelled like that.  I’m also happy we had her before that episode aired!