What's in a name?

I think it's safe to say that naming a child is a task that can be very intimidating.  Terral and I started talking about names we like soon after we were married.  It wasn't something that we talked or thought of often, but we wanted to sort of get the ball rolling since I thought it would be a difficult decision.  Of course, when we found out we were expecting, our search for a name became much more earnest.  It was easier to think of girls' names at first.  We had one in particular that we both like, but are a little unsure about ever using because of our last name.

One summer evening we decided to take a walk around the block.  As we walked, we talked about possible choices.  Terral threw out the name Ethan, which he had always liked.  I still had girl names on the brain, but I said, "Yeah, I like that name," and it was filed away in our minds.

Then a couple weeks before we had our ultrasound, we were gathered at my in-laws' house.  The oft-asked question came up: "What do you think you'll have?"  And I gave my usual answer of I really don't know and we'll be happy either way.  My mother- and sister-in-law both said they thought we'd have a girl, and suddenly I felt strongly that we wouldn't.  On the way home, I mentioned that feeling to Terral and he said he felt the same.  We kept our thought of "boy" to ourselves.

When I was 19 weeks along, we went down to Vegas to get an ultrasound.  (It was less expensive that way.)  Just before we found out the gender, the technician asked me what I thought.  He said that it's been his experience that 90% of the time, the mother is right.  I told him I thought it was a boy, and then he told me I was absolutely right.  Somehow we weren't surprised. :) 

Now that we knew for sure that we were going to have a boy, the name Ethan just kept coming back.  We had talked about other names, but this one just stuck and it seemed to fit.  We didn't want to commit until we saw him, though, and I was a little reluctant to use it  because I have a cousin with that name.  Also, we wanted to give our baby a name with personal meaning, and Ethan just kind of popped up out of nowhere.  So we decided to try to find a family name for his middle name. 

We looked in my mother-in-law's book of remembrance.  We found some possiblities there, but didn't really feel attached to any.  When we were at my parents' house for Christmas, I asked my mom if we could borrow some family history information, and she sent us home with a book of remembrance for her side and my dad's.  On the drive home, I read aloud parts of my great-grandma Cook's life history.  In it, she mentions that her grandmother helped to bring her into the world.  We had learned from my Grandma Henke just that weekend that Catherine Cameron Southam was a midwife.

In looking at all of the books, we found that Oliver was a name that was repeated both on my side and Terral's side of the family, and we were leaning toward that as a middle name.  It was the name connected to a very interesting and admirable ancestor of Terral's.

The next day I started labor.  After the baby was born and we were settled in bed, Terral came in and told me that when he looked at our boy, the name Cameron kept coming to mind.  I said that was interesting, because the name had come to my mind as well while I was laboring, but that I'd dismissed it because the only Cameron I could think of was Terral's cousin.  He reminded me that it was the last name of my ancestor, and we realized how fitting it was.  We debated a little bit as to which name should be the first, but in the end we decided Ethan Cameron Fox just seemed right.

Ethan has Hebrew origins and it means Strong.  He is already living up to it!