Family Names as Middle Names

My husband is a teacher so he was VERY particular about just what baby names would do - traditional, easy to spell, difficult to mock, wasn't the name of a difficult student he'd had, etc. I wanted a name that wasn't common or fussy and would look good on a business card. It also needed to flow when you had to yell their entire name across the playground or grocery store - lol!

When we named our children we ended up starting with their middle names, then picked first names that we liked that went well with them. My mother passed away when I was a kid, so I really wanted to name my daughter after her, but didn't like my mother's first name - so I gave my daughter my mother's middle name, Eve (my mother was born on Christmas Eve).

For my second child, a son, we had an easy time picking the middle name. Both my father and my father-in-law shared the same middle name. My son's middle name became, William, after both his grandfathers.

If my third child had been a girl we would have used my mother-in-law's first name for her middle name and named her Katherine Elaine, but since I was having a boy, we asked my mother-in-law to choose his middle name. The funny thing was that I knew she'd wanted to name my husband Michael but didn't get her way, so I was SURE she would choose Michael. After months of debating, looking through the family tree, and asking friends what they thought, guess what she ended up choosing? My youngest son's middle name is Michael.

Admittedly, if our family names hadn't been to my liking, I might not have gone this route, but it was really important to me to give the kids some history in their names. The kids all think it's really neat that they're named for their grandparents, and of course, their grandparents think it's pretty special too. :)

By Stephanie from Hillsboro, OR