What's in a Name?

As our journey continues in searching for yet another perfect boy name, Tyler and I find ourselves looking back at all of our boy's names, origins, and connections.  

For some odd reason patterns in the names in our family are important to me.  I find comfort in this: Each of the Smith children has a name that is connected to a family member; and none of the first names start with the same letter.  I tell you this so that when you give your suggestions for Smith boy #5 you can take our past patterns into consideration.  

Elijah Benjamin was, probably, our biggest joint effort in name selection.  Elijah, meaning "the Lord is my God",  had been a name on both of our lists from before the time we were married, and so it made sense to name our first son after the great prophet Elijah.  Benjamin as a middle name was a natural choice as it brought a family connection through Tyler's brother Ben, a wonderful friend with whom we laugh often.

Josiah James has the most obscure family connection in the lot.  After naming Eli after Tyler's brother; I wanted to name a son after my brother.  Josiah is not my brother's name.  My brother's name is Joshua which all of you Hebrew scholars can attest to, has the same root as Josiah, "the Lord saves".  Couple that with Josh's nickname being Jo, and suddenly you have a family connection.  James is the name of my favorite book of the bible, and happened to be the book that Tyler and I were reading at the time that Siah was born.  

Andrew Tyler was the hardest naming experience that I have had.  The reason being that Tyler changed his name after we had "already" named him.  For 12 hours I called him Titus Andrew only to have Tyler change it on me.  The confusion was hard, but eventually overcome.  Andrew is a family name on my mother's side and Titus was to be his own.  But alas, Tyler decided to make Andrew, "mighty", the first name which opened up the chance for me to change the Titus to Tyler.  A change I thought appropriate considering the incredible job Tyler did in Andrew's delivery.  Alas, Andrew has 2 family connections, but we didn't really know the connection on my mother's side, so let's call Tyler his family connection shall we?

Caleb Thomas was named by Tyler, mostly.  This was the second time that Tyler requested the name and seeing as he didn't want to budge on my options for first name; I decided to drop my requests and key in on the middle name.  So, Tyler chose Caleb, "devotion", after the courageous man in the bible, and I chose Thomas after Tyler's grandmother, whose middle name is also Thomas.  What a feat!  We have managed to name one of our children after a much beloved grandmother!  

As you might have noticed I like the twists found in our naming choices for the boys.  I like using a root form of Joshua to name my son Josiah and naming a son after a grandmother.  I find it intriguing and full of great history.  This new son's name has a lot to live up to.  For a middle name I am leaning on the family connection to my father's family.  My father's birthday is in August and I thought the close proximity to our due date would be a nice treat.  At this moment my middle name of choice is "Sevryt" pronounced sev'rE.  First names are numerous and all hold wonderful meanings.  Here is our list and please feel free to comment and put in your suggestions.

Gabriel -  "Hero of God"

Zebedee - "Given by God"

Samuel - "God Heard"

Micah - "Who resembles God"

Gideon - "Powerful Warrior"

Reuben -  "Behold, A Son" (like that's a surprise!!)

If you need more information on what kind of names that we tend towards, not that you wouldn't notice the biblical connections.  Here are some names we have considered in the past:

Noah, Daniel, Jedidiah, Zechariah, Azariah (ok, I was wishing, but Tyler hated it), Matthias, Timothy, Jacob.