With a Name Like That

The duty of naming a child, was very serious to me.  It was one of the first things I actually tried wrapping my brain around in January, when we found out Cade was on the way.

Giving a child a name was a task I didn't take lightly.  I wanted something with meaning, individuality, and strength.  I wanted others to hear the name and think "Wow, with a name like that anything is possible".

I never bought a baby name book.  I didn't read any articles about popular or unpopular names.  And we didn't share the names with anyone...well two people knew, but we really kept a lid on the secrecy.  I didn't want anyone to ruin the names.  When you share names people will always share their two cents.  It is not their fault.  But I am a teacher.  There are so many names that have already been 'ruined' for me.  I hear a name and think of a specific child.  I didn't want my own child to have a connection with a student of the past.  I wanted my child to be my child.  No classroom connection.

My name is Amanda.  I am told I was named after my Great, Great Grandma Amanda Brock.  I have some pictures with my namesake, but I have no memory of this grandma.  I know my Great Grandma Stallkamp, her daughter, and my Grandma Cade, her daughter, both who are amazing women so I think Grandma Amanda had to be pretty amazing too.  My middle name is Ann, which is a name that shows up on my mother, and father's sides.  So both of my names are family names.  They have meaning.  I wanted that for my child.

But in the same breath that I can say my name has meaning, it is not individual.  There are a ton of Amandas in my generation.  I grew up in a small town, and I would say I still graduated high school with close to 10 other Amandas.  When I was growing up, they would have those personalized trinkets with names on them.  My name was always sold out.  I tried to create my own individuality by dropping my nickname Mandy in first grade.  Disclaimer: Do not try and bring this back.  I only tolerate my family to call me Mandy, and my when I go back home my Kindergarten teacher still calls me Mandy.  I then tried to get the nickname Panther to catch on in fifth and sixth grade.  Don't ask me why.  This was the same time I refused to wear two of the same colored socks.  Sadly, Panther never caught on and I started wearing matching socks in seventh grade.  I brought back Mandi, but ended with an "i" in 8th grade.  This also never caught on, and I got sick of reminding my parents how to spell my new name.  I am not entirly sure if my search for individuality was because of my name Amanda, but I know a lot of my problem was that there were so many of us with the same name.  I wanted to be "THE AMANDA" who was bound for amazing things.

On the other side of that my sister's name is Trisha.  Not Patricia, and not spelled "Tricia".  Her name has taken on a new round of popularity more recently, but in the late 80's she was the only one in class, her school, in our small town in general.  Her name is not connected to the family at all.  She is Trisha, and the only Trisha, and my parents just liked her name.  She could never find any of those personalized trinkets either, but because they didn't make them.  She was an individual in my mind.  When people talked about Trisha, they didn't ask, which Trisha?  They knew Trisha.  With me... it was which Amanda?  I wanted something more original for my child.

Jacob's name is one that his parents just liked.  His brothers all have J names, so all three boys have J names.  Jacob said we would not be having a J name.  Jacob's middle name is Richard, which was his grandfather's name.  So again there were family ties.  Jacob doesn't like the name "Jake" so he doesn't have a nickname.  He is not big on nicknames to be honest.  He didn't have one growing up, so he has never understood why one needs one.  So when we were picking out names, I would say something about a nickname we could call the child, he would come back with, let's just name the child the nickname then.  So we had to do a little compromising.  

And finally I wanted a strong name.  Something that people immediately could visualize going somewhere, doing something big, a name that could take the child somewhere.  I have never wanted to set a path for our unborn child, so I didn't visualize the name on TV, or being announced over a loud speaker, but I wanted the name to flow, so if he/she ended up in that kind of profession it would be easy to say. 

When I started teaching down here in Atlanta, I had a student who had a super original name.  She embraced her name, she had individuality, and after talking with the family about her name I found out her name was her mother's maiden name.  I was floored.  What a great idea.  After being in the classroom six years now, I have had a least one child per class, who was named after their mother's maiden name.  This tradition is something I had never heard of until I moved South.  I really liked this idea.  I had heard of other boys who had the name Cade, but it is not overly popular yet.  I always liked my maiden name.   It was a hard decision when I finally braved changing my name after I married Jacob.  I went back and forth between Cade-Larkin, just Larkin, or keeping my maiden name and not changing it. I knew Cade was a strong name, and the Cade family is a group of caring, strong individuals.   My final decision to take just Larkin was a hard adjustment, but now I am so happy I did it.  It was meant to be.  I didn't know then, but I would have a child to carry on my maiden name. 

Jacob liked Cade, and we agreed on that for the boys name before the end of January.  Now his middle name Ashby is just as strong, meaningful, and individual.  I am not one to just take a child and only put in my side of the family, and not consider the other half of the DNA.  I knew the baby would have Larkin as the last name, but we needed to get Jacob's family represented.  We thought about our father's name, middle names, grandfather names, any names that showed up on both sides.  Then I started thinking about when we were growing up Jacob's family would always do things with his mother's brother's family the Ashby's.  They called it the Ashby-Larkin time.  They did a lot of things together.  Ashby Larkin had a nice ring.  It flowed well off the tongue.  We had found the middle name.

After we came up with Cade Ashby Larkin, I did google search the name Cade Larkin, and Cade Ashby Larkin.  There are no murderers, or famous people that will overshadow Cade as he grows.  We checked his initials, CAL, to make sure they didn't spell anything, or end up being obnoxious.  In elementary school you write your initials on a lot of things.  We tried to come up with nicknames that rhyme with Cade, as kids will figure them out, and will be mean.  After we had done this we decided on Cade Ashby Larkin was the perfect name for our boy.

Cade Ashby Larkin, has a great family meaning, it is still individual, and Cade is a strong name that can take this baby boy as far as he wants to go.  I don't want to say this was an easy choice, but it is one of the things I feel completely at peace about.  Our little boy was meant to be named Cade!

On a side note we went through the same process for the girl's name.  Had Cade been a girl her name would have been Eleanor Jean Larkin.  Eleanor was the name of my Great Grandma Figel, who was an amazing woman.  Jean is the name of Jacob's two grandma's and my grandma Walters' name.  It was a perfect mix of strong family names (all four of those women were/are strong, amazing women), Eleanor is not a popular name, but a name that could have taken the little one far.  I will add Jacob did agree on a nickname for her, which would have been Ellee.