What's in a name?

Reading Cheri's blog today, gave me an excuse inspiration to blog about the stories behind my children's names. I wouldn't say that these stories are all that interesting but it's an easy story to tell and I am already one day behind on my NaBloPoMo agreement so here I go.

/j(a)-mie-DAWN: (said properly-with a twang)
I think I have apologized over the years to you, but if I haven’t I offer an apology and an explanation now.

"Honey, please understand, it was the 70’s. I didn’t choose your name. I tried to suggest Dharma Star or Rainbow Joplin but I was sadly over-ruled."

Jamie, was her father's idea and Dawn was her Podunk Tennesee Grandma's idea. I was absolutely certain that I was having a boy and his name was going to be Dylan Thomas or Ziggy Freedom anyway. She probably is really horrified thrilled as she reads this, because I have now published her middle name on the world wide web.

Sidenote: I found out after she was born and named and birth certificates and SSN’s were issued that Jamie was the name of her father’s previous girlfriend. The first girl he ever kissed. Nice.

ANTHONY RICHARD and BRANDON MICHAEL:
I was having twins and because I did not choose to find out the sex of any of my children ahead of time, I had to think of 80’s appropriate girl/girl, girl/boy, and boy/boy first and middle name combinations. That was pretty hard for me.

Baby A and Baby B (which is how they are named in the delivery room) became Baby Anthony. I was pushing for Adam Ant and Boy George, but once again, OVER-RULED. Baby B was nameless until they told me I couldn't leave that hospital until he had a name. He became Brandon. That was the name of one of Erica Cane's hunky soap opera husbands, whom I was madly in love with at the time. The middle names were those of their completely disconnected, inattentive godfathers.

HENRY TANNER:
Now, Henry was a name I have always loved (it was my Dad’s middle name) I was pretty absolutely sure I wasn’t having any more children in the new millennium, so we named our beloved chihuahua Henry instead.

Well, the miracle boy came along anyway, and since Henry the chihuahua had been squished by a truck gone over the rainbow bridge many years before, Henry the boy got the much beloved recycled name. I let his teenage brothers choose his middle name. It was a totally rad, California surfer name and I said it was just fine with me as long as his father didn’t complain wring my neck. Actually, this was a trick way to get them invested in their little brother early, so they would help change diapers, but I think Henry likes Tanner, so it worked out.

Henry was going to be a Megan Rylee or Riley if he had been a girl. I am glad he wasn’t, because /j(a)-mie-DAWN already had her eye on Rylee for her own future daughter name. I rooked her out of a cooler name for herself, so I am glad I didn’t swipe her girl baby name too.

Maybe that is why on her blog, she calls herself just jamie. She really didn’t want the world to know her middle name is DAWN. Oops.