Naming the Boy

(I wrote this over six years ago, This is the first time its even been published. I hope you enjoy it.)



So my wife and I are expecting our fifth (and final) child. We already have three beautiful daughters and one incredibly handsome son. That’s right, he looks just like me. Through the miracle of squishy gel and sound waves we just found out that we are pregnant with a second boy (and when I say we I mean she).

Oh what joy fills my bosom at this wondrous discovery. Of course now we are faced with the daunting task of finding a name for the new air breather. Ah, to name a child, your own flesh and blood. To find that right combination of letters and syllables that will be the first and foremost reason that your offspring utters the words “My parents are idiots”.

My wife Tracy and I have never had a hard time finding the perfect names for our children, until now. Oh we would throw names out there and suggest ideas to each other, but the right moniker always seemed to rise to the surface early on in our search. In fact, I believe we had the name of our oldest picked just a few weeks after the stick turned pink. But this last baby has been eluding a label now for 30 weeks and with the deadline of birth in site we are feeling the pressure to find this boy a name.

It may be because he is the last and this is our final chance to get it right. Or it may be the fact that he is a he and all the good names that come to mind are for girls, but this name thing is harder the fifth time than it was the first four.

As good responsible parents we (again, here I mean she) want to find something that embodies strength, tenderness, intelligence and leadership. To be honest I just want a name that means something cool like ‘warrior’, or ‘killer’, or ‘warrior killer’.

About two years ago I learned about a name in our past from a family member that is into genealogy. We have some ancestors whose last name was Sheriff. What a cool name. I could have a son named Sheriff Martin right out of the gate. No waiting for him to grow up, develop a career in law enforcement, and become an elected official.

And whenever someone looked at me funny and asked me how we came up with the name I could stick up my nose and simply say “It’s an old family name”. However, as you can imagine, a more ‘sensible’ head prevailed and vetoed me while laughing her sensible little head off. So now I’m just trying to find this boy a cool name that won’t help him bring extra black-eyes home from school.

I remember my school days as a young one plagued by my name and cursing my parents for it. Nowadays Ben is probably not such a bad deal, but in the late 70’s and early 80’s my grade school virtually echoed with “Benjy the Dog” and “Obi-Ben Kenobi” (Star Wars was huge). The most uninspired was “Ben, Ben, the big fat hen” and the one that boiled my blood, pushed my buttons, and almost guaranteed a fight and a trip to the principle's office, was the dreaded “Ben Gay”. Of course, now I use Ben Gay on my old man shoulders once in a while.

So now I search for something that will hold the name-calling down to a minimum and still meet my wife’s requirements of great meaning.

My fourth child and first son is named Tyler. An uncomplicated name with the same meaning in almost any language: a guy that lays tile. So thinking along those lines I came up with Sawyer, Thatcher, Mason, or Hammer-er. Then I realized that if I choose one of these I’ll have to get my contractor’s license and go into business with my boys.

So I came home the other day and my princess had prepared a list (she’s big on lists) of names along with their meanings that she gleaned from some Internet site. Now I had been perusing a few baby name sites at work (while on break of course) and a name on her list caught my eye. I had already noticed that name in my own search. Immediately excited, I believed I had found a possible name for our son.

There on her paper she had the name Kimball, and the Anglo-Saxon meaning was noble or brave. Of course I had seen this name before and had taken note of it. This one could be a winner. I like the sound of it, it’s a strong name, not too common, and my wife likes the name and the meaning. Of course we won’t tell her that I prefer the Welsh meaning: Warrior Chief.