Show & Tell Tuesday: Names

Today I am joining Andrea @ Momfessionals for Show & Tell Tuesday. This round is about names. Your name, your kids' names, and maybe even how you named your pet!

This is perfect timing really. Exactly 2 years ago today, I was very impatiently waiting for my husband to get home from a weekend fishing trip. I found out Saturday morning that I was pregnant! I sat on this HUGE secret through lunch with girlfriends, dinner with my mom and Drew's girlfriend, and a birthday party for our best friends' daughter. The only "person" I told was Diesel (our dog who was pretty much named after my husbands love for diesel trucks. Sutphen, a fire truck manufacturer, was a close one but seemed too difficult to yell. Being able to easily yell a name is crucial). He finally arrived home at EIGHT O'CLOCK THAT NIGHT. Longest. Weekend. Ever! 37 hours I had to wait to tell a human that could have a reaction.

A little name story. Before we started trying, Danny and I pretty much had our kids' names picked out. We had 4 names: 2 boys and 2 girls. Now I don't think we'll have 4 kids, but we still had 4 names. I'll share them all. I don't care if you take them. We don't live in the same town and it's not like our families will be around each other all the time for any confusion to happen.

The girls: Kendall Lynn and Alexis (Lexi/Lexie for short) Marie. The first names come from TV shows. Kendall is from the soap opera All My Children and Lexi/Lexie comes from Grey's Anatomy. I don't know if Alexis is Little Grey's real first name on the show, but I don't want to name my kid a nickname. The middle names are after our mom's. Lynn is my mom's middle name and Marie is Danny's mom's real name. Danny loves Lexi/Lexie. He doesn't think the name Kendall fits a "chunky blonde girl" which is what he thinks we'll have. Nice, I know.

Now the boys: Daniel Cole (he would go by Cole) and Dayton Paul. And here is where you're thinking, but Tucker is not anywhere in those names. I'll get there. Daniel is Danny's real name and it is also my dad's name. Convenient, I know. Cole is a name that Danny and I just love. Spelled with a C and not a K. However, my second cousins son, who is rarely at family functions because he is usually with his mom, is named Kole. Daniel Cole was at the top of my list. Then we got worried about there potentially being a Cole and Kole at family functions. Now that I think about it, its silly. Now Dayton Paul. I think my great-great grandpa's name was Dayton. It's cool, its different, and its a family name. I love family names and so does Danny. Which is where the Paul comes from. Danny and his dad both have the middle name Paul.

Now for the actual existing living breathing boy that we didn't use either of those first names on. Tucker Paul.

Boy names are hard for us. Or maybe we just make it difficult. We have 10 nephews, a ton of boy cousins, 5 brothers between the two of us, and the fire department has a bunch of boys. And we obviously bring second cousin's step children into the mix too. Because of this, we used Nymbler, a baby name generator to help us. I love this site. You type in a name you like, or pick from a pool of suggestions, and it will give you similar names. How fun, right? Anyways, after typing in like 93 names, Tucker was a suggestions and viola. Tucker Paul went to the top of the list. After we found out we were having a boy, Danny decided he was going to start using names in conversation to test them out. About a week and a half in, I noticed he hadn't tried any other name. I just looked at him and asked "can we just agree that his name is Tucker?" That was pretty much how that happened.

For future children, I see our girl names sticking around. I love them and I'm not letting them go. I also love the name Lily (which is also from All My Children), but Danny's sister (it may have been his brother) had a dog named Lily. Alison is also a great name, Ali for short, but we are friends with an Alison who has a daughter named Hali.  I don't want to name my child after a family pet that has died.  For boys, there are a couple of others that I really like. I am very adamant that Daniel will be part of the name, just not sure if it will be first or middle and it won't be the name that he goes by. I still like Cole, but there are some others that I like too. Levi, Garrett, Hudson(Danny doesn't like it), and Carson (fire department kid), Cooper (nephew's name). We'll see what happens.

I know you're dying to know where my name came from. Erin came from the old TV show the Waltons. My parents had a hard time picking a girl name. Other contenders were: Lindsey, Kristin, Shelby and Katelyn/Caitlin (I don't know how it would have been spelled). Katelyn/Caitlin was my mom's top choice, then my aunt stole it about 3 months before my parents found out they were pregnant. Then one night they were watching TV, saw the name Erin, and here I am. Erin Michelle.