Naming Liam

When when found out we were having a boy, we were stymied. What would we name this kid?? It seemed to us that boy's names came in two flavors: boring, run of the mill names and flash in the pan trendy names. As my friend put it,"Every boy now is named Ethan, Ian or Hayden, Jaden, and Caden." (This was really a complaint because she picked Ian for her son, but it nicely sums up the two camps).

We tossed names about. We liked Ryan, but Ryan Smith? How generic is that! In fact, I already know two people with that exact name! We talked about Nolan and Owen, Trevor and Travis (ok, really only Mac talked about Travis!), but they just didn't feel right.

"It would have been so much easier if it was just a girl," I complained to Mac, for we had already picked a girl's name: Leah.

"We could just call him Liam, it's practically the same name," Mac joked.

"I like that name." Mac admitted he did, too. As we talked about it more it became more appealing. Mac's family has a strong history of naming people after other family members: There's grandpa Nick, Big Nick and Little Nick (who's definitely not little!); Grandpa Joe and Joe, Grandma Phyllis and Phyllis; Pat and Patrick; Uncle Mike and Michael; Ralph Sheridan and Ralph William and Kendall Sheridan.

William is Mac's dad's name, Mac's middle name, and my great grandfather was Walter William. Liam was a way to use a family name, but with a fresh and more modern feel - a good middle ground between the boring, standard names and the trendy flash in the pan names, for in some ways 'Liam' could fit into either category.

In the end, the decision was made the same way we chose Megan's name: with an NCAA March Madness-like tournament with head to head name match-ups. Justin vs. Aaron, Graham vs. Grant, Thomas vs. Walter, etc. The winners moved on to the next round to face off with another potential name. Every now and then both names from a match up advanced, if Mac and I were in complete disagreement (like over Travis) and the issue could usually be resolved with new match ups. It was surprising how little we did disagree, though. Most match-ups had a clear cut (unanimous) winner. In the end, Liam ended up the name on top.