People think that they really like baby names and they like talking and thinking about it, but I take that to a whole new level. I am an administrator on a baby name forum, I have made endless lists so that I can track a name's popularity, see if it is going to move up or down in usage, if it is favored by people of certain socioeconomic status or education level or race or background, or if it is more popular in a certain area than it is in others. I have bought "The Baby Name Wizard" by Laura Wattenberg a total of 6 times so far because I keep reading and rereading it until the book falls apart in my hands.
Trust me--I really do truly love baby names.
Surprisingly enough, it actually stresses me out to name my own child. I love it--it's a wonderful first gift to give to your child--but I cannot look at it objectively, and I can't narrow it down to just one name I love.
That is why when I was pregnant with Gabriel, I let Michael take full control of naming the baby, even going so far as to have him shut me out of the naming process so I couldn't fret about it. It worked out beautifully, as everyone I know adores the name Gabriel Lynn. It was perfect!
This time, I let Michael take the lead again and I asked him what he would name the baby if he didn't have input from me.
Benjamin Reilly was instantly on his lips.
You see, Benjamin Reilly was a name that I had adored when I was pregnant with Emerald, the name we had agreed to had she been a boy. Michael formed a deep attachment to it the moment I voiced it. Emerald turned out to be a girl, so we couldn't use it on her; Gabriel needed to carry on the family middle name of Lynn, and he never could have been anything but a Gabe. But this time, it just felt right.
A little history behind the name:
Benjamin is a Hebrew name which means "son of the south" or (more likely) "son of my right hand". Most people will remember Benjamin as the youngest of Jacob's sons--one of only two given to him by his beloved wife Rachel (the other being the famous Joseph)--in the Bible. The name was not widely used until the Protestant Reformation, but now is number 20 on the Social Security Administration's Top 1000 Baby Names list of 2009.
Nationally, it has been fairly popular since it was an irresistible combination of Biblical and founding father.
But in Texas, it is only ranked at number 43, which means that only about 925 boys were born in 2009 with the first name Benjamin. Old Biblical classics like Benjamin have been taking a bit of a hit in the last few years, as the hottest baby naming trend is to pick a unique, uncommon moniker for your baby, which means fewer and fewer parents are choosing names from the Top 100 (more-so for girls, but it has affected the male children too).
Reilly is an Irish surname, one of the more traditional spellings of a name that has seen a rise in popularity in the last few years due to a Celtic fad. It means "son of Roghallach", but don't ask me what or who Roghallach could possibly be. It is one of the more masculine spellings (Riley being the other one).
What I did not know when I suggested Ben Reilly to Michael was the emotional attachment he all ready had to the name. Michael was very close to his late grandfather, John T., but we did not feel comfortable using the name John. We wanted to honor him in a special way, but we were having a very difficult time working out a solution. Ben Reilly provided that solution.
John T. started Michael's love affair with comics by giving him an antique Spider-Man book when Michael was little, and later taking him to buy comics. When Mike was growing up, the event going on in the Spider-Man universe at the time was The Clone Saga, with Spider-Man's clone, Benjamin Reilly...the Scarlet Spider.
That is why the name stuck out so well to him because it reminded him of his grandfather and the love he has for these characters and stories.
Now everyone is curious--what did Michael pick had the baby been a girl?
The girl name was much more of a process for us than the boy name, and I will share it here since I find it unlikely that we will have more children, and we were really proud of the girl name as well.
When I asked Michael what he would name the baby without input from me, he instantly said Benjamin Reilly; but he paused for a girl's name before telling me he had always loved the name Gwen.
Gwen's a fantastic name, so I jumped right on board and started researching it.
I don't know if anyone has noticed this, but we DO have a name theme going on--all the children have three-syllable first names. Emerald, Gabriel, Benjamin...so Gwen was too short. The elaborations on Gwen are not many--Guinevere, Gwynna, Gwyneth...and Gwendolyn. I love Gwendolyn. It is beautiful, and classic, and it started as a modification of the name Guendoloena, a fictional character in Welsh mythology and Arthurian legend.
Gwendolyn is a fairly uncommon name, and we had the option of calling her Gwen, Gwennie, Wendy, Wynn, Wynnie, or Dolly, which gave us lots of options. It means "Blessed White Ring" in Welsh.
I tried about a thousand middle names, but none of them seemed right--one night while I was gone in Tyler, I was reeling through family names aloud to see if any "felt" right, and the baby jumped when I said one--
Gwendolyn Fern.
Fern is Michael's great-grandmother on Rhonda's side, it's beautiful and timeless, and has the extra bonus of being a literary name (which is my style). If you don't remember, Fern is the little girl from "Charlotte's Web"--
Michael fell in love with the name the first time I said it, just like he did with Benjamin Reilly, and we knew we had our names. Gwendolyn is irresistibly adorable but mature; Benjamin is approachable but strong, masculine but sweet.
So! Those are our names!
~Andie~
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