MicroBlog Monday-What's in a Name

When we left to go to the hospital to have Bonus Baby, we did not have a boy's name picked out, only a girls name, so of course he turned out to be a boy. My husband and I just could not agree on a boys name we both liked, and to be honest we didn't try very hard. I had been sending emails to myself with names I heard or read in the baby names book and liked, and a couple days before he was born we read through them again but didn't really discuss any one name in great length.

When Bonus Baby came out, he definitely had more of my genes with the very dark, olive Italian skin and full head of dark hair.(My husband's background is the pale British, so most of my kids are a good mix, but not this one!) I spent the first hours pretty drugged up so I wasn't really in a position to talk names or name a baby. At some point I sobered up a bit, and I remember telling my mom "Dad wouldn't have sent me this Italian-looking little baby from heaven without having a really good Italian name picked out for him."

When I was first writing down names I liked there was one name that really stood out to me that I loved, but my husband did not like it and shot it down months before. The only other time I had said the name other than that one time was a couple days before when I read it again in the lists of names I had picked out, but we didn't sit and talk or debate the name. So imagine my surprise when my husband comes back to the hospital with all the kids and they are calling the baby by the nickname of that name I loved. When I told them we hadn't named him yet and asked where they got that name from they said "you know, for (insert full name here), Daddy told us some names and this is what we like." So I looked at my husband and said "I thought you hated that name, you shot it down months ago...???" And he was just all nonchalant and said the name grew on him!?!? And in my drugged up state I wasn't comprehending and thinking there was a catch or some kind of set up, so I said we would talk about it when we could have a minute without all the kids and when I was less high.

Every time I looked at Bonus Baby from then on that was the only name I could see;he just looked like that name. It took us until the next night to firmly settle on his name, but we needed a middle name. My husband suggested my dad's name for his middle name, and it was settled. I filled out the paperwork pretty soon after.

A few weeks later my sister said "so you know mom found your dad's birth certificate and his name was actually -insert Bonus Baby's nickname here." And so begins a crazy story that I had never in my life heard before. The gist of it was my grandfather was drunk and when asked what he was naming my father he said after his buddies who were waiting, and drinking, at the hospital with him, the first of which is my baby's nickname. The nickname is an actual portion of the full name. So my dad has a legal completely different name. But somehow that name came around to me without ever knowing this story. I have a copy of the birth certificate now. It turns out way back then, you didn't need the birth certificate for school or drivers licenses or anything. So I guess my grandparents started calling him the actual name and never changed anything legally. So my dad had two legal names, because the name I always knew him as was on his license and college degrees and passport, and government ID and federal shield. And that name is the name Bonus Baby has for his middle name.

I truly believe my dad sent me this Italian baby and his most perfect name, there was no coincidence here. My dad is still with me every single day, and even though he isn't here on earth to know Bonus baby, I know in my heart they have already met. And his name is perfect and meant to be.

~In the interest of keeping this blog Anonymous I won't publish the name here. But if anyone would like to know, send me an email and I will gladly share! :) muchadoaboutnothingblogger@gmail.com