the story behind the name

I wish I could say that we have a funny/unique/special/inspirational story about how we chose our son's name, but I regret to inform you that we don't.  In regards to decision-making, Eric and I try to keep it simple and in most cases tend to come to decide on things rather quickly.  Choosing a baby's name, however, shouldn't be done with haste, and we wanted to take enough time to consider all the possibilities.

It can be a challenge for two people to agree on a decision when both can tend to be picky.  Eric wanted our son to have a really cool, badass name.  I didn't want to pick names that started with certain letters.  We both agreed that we wanted a name that was common in the sense that people would recognize it and know its common spelling and pronunciation, but not so common that we knew of several people by the same name.  With a few rules in place, we both began brainstorming.

The minute we got in the car after our ultrasound appointment that confirmed our baby's gender, I asked Eric to tell me what boy names he had been thinking about.  When he shared the one name he had thought of, I was surprised that he liked that name and was equally surprised to like it myself.  Eric asked the same question of me and I, too, had only come up with one boy name.  We spent the rest of the ride home buried in our thoughts.

A few days later, neither of us had come up with any additional names and I had thought long and hard about the two we put on the table.  The longer I considered it, the more I realized that I didn't care too much for the name I suggested and was really starting to like the one Eric had offered more and more.  Eric agreed that it wasn't it, so I decided to officially remove my name from the table.  That left us down to one name and still no additional ideas.

Having just our one name, I proposed that we "give it a test drive," meaning to start referring to the baby by that name to see how it felt.  Eric thought it was a good idea and we agreed to only call the baby by this name in private.  I was surprised at how natural the name felt, and as the days went on the name felt more and more right.  After a week and a half of test-driving, we were still not able to come up with any other names and I couldn't think of a reason why we shouldn't just admit that our one name was in fact the one.

It was a back-and-forth conversation that went somewhere along the lines of: "Do you think it's the name?"  "Do you think this should be his name?"  "Are we decided?"  "Is that what you want?"  Finally, we shared the news with each of our dads and it became official that our son had been given a name.

Simon Alexander

Simon - "To be heard"

Alexander - "Helper and defender of mankind"

During our test-drive period of 'Simon,' Eric and I each came up with the middle name of Alexander separately.  We both liked the way it sounded with 'Simon' and agreed it must be a sign if we both thought of the same middle name without discussing it first.  As we've begun sharing our son's name, we've received nothing but sweet comments and reactions confirming that we've made a good choice.  It's been a great experience sharing Simon's name with our loved ones and it's been another step closer to making this pregnancy and baby boy inside of me feel even more real.  Eric and I look forward to sharing our little Simon with the world in the next few months!