In case you were wondering (a few have asked), here is how we arrived at his name…
First of all, the name Miles means “merciful.”
Last year, Pete designated 2008 as a “Year of Mercy” for our family, with the basic intent that we would be intentional about trying to show mercy to others consistently throughout the year. I can’t say we were tremendously successful at that in terms of our actual actions, but perhaps this child, conceived in that year, will show the world great Mercy in future years.
Although I originally was not a fan of the name…. see my initial thoughts, back in October, here: I have gradually come around to like it. But the clincher for me was when we were having a verbal tug-of-war over 2 different names, and Pete said, “I don’t know… it’s just when I put my hand on your belly and feel him, I just think his name is Miles.” How could I argue with THAT?? So within 12 hours after hearing that comment, I was on-board.
And because I like themes and patterns and consistency throughout things, I immediately set to work to try and figure out how Miles would fit in with our other children. I told Pete I had come up with this sentence to tie us all together:
First of all, the name Miles means “merciful.”
Last year, Pete designated 2008 as a “Year of Mercy” for our family, with the basic intent that we would be intentional about trying to show mercy to others consistently throughout the year. I can’t say we were tremendously successful at that in terms of our actual actions, but perhaps this child, conceived in that year, will show the world great Mercy in future years.
Although I originally was not a fan of the name…. see my initial thoughts, back in October, here: I have gradually come around to like it. But the clincher for me was when we were having a verbal tug-of-war over 2 different names, and Pete said, “I don’t know… it’s just when I put my hand on your belly and feel him, I just think his name is Miles.” How could I argue with THAT?? So within 12 hours after hearing that comment, I was on-board.
And because I like themes and patterns and consistency throughout things, I immediately set to work to try and figure out how Miles would fit in with our other children. I told Pete I had come up with this sentence to tie us all together:
Striding along, under the Rays of the sun, through seasons of hot and Cold, we journey through the Miles of life, and for Pete’s sake, we try to be Amiable.
Pete said I was pushing it too much. I don’t care, though… I’m sticking with it. ("Corny" should be my middle name.) If anyone can come up with a better sentence, I would definitely love to hear it! (Don't let me down, Mom!)
And, to keep up with our other patterns, Quentin was the ideal middle name. First of all, it’s the name of a character from a trilogy of books from one of my favorite authors, Stephen Lawhead. Quentin, similar to the characters our other boys are named after, starts off as a humble boy, but ends up as a king in the end, after a long journey of Truth searching and character testing. (And Quentin starts with Q, so we kept the pattern of “S,R, Q, P” (alphabetical letters backwards) with the 4 kids (first or middle names), as was one of my goals in our initial name search).
So, that was the thought progression. Oh- -- and it was pretty unanimous among the kids, too. Every time we tried to suggest a different boy name, we kept hearing, "No! We want Miles!" And I have to say it's pretty darn cute hearing Colsen call him "Baby Miles" all the time...
No comments:
Post a Comment