The women stopped and told me how cute Rowan was ( of course he is, duh!) and then asked me his name. I said Rowan and she asked me how we came up with that name. I gave her a short version (she was a little creepy!), but I'll share the full story of Rowan's name with you all.
Ryan and I have talked about baby names for years, like before we were engaged years. We have had a girls name picked out for quite some time, but never really could come up with a good boys name. Shortly after we got married I came up with one based off of our fathers. It was important to me that our first male child would be named after our dads. Both of our dads are very important to us and have helped shaped who we are so I thought it was a good way to honor them. I came up with the name Weston Robert. Ryan's dads name is Wesley and my dads is Robert. It was perfect and I LOVED it. Needless to say I said it aloud once around Ryan's family not thinking anything about and then his sister got pregnant before us with a boy and named him Weston. I was a little sad at first, but it totally fits him and I love that Jessica got to name her first born after her dad.
So the hunt was on again! After we found out we were having a boy we seriously started looking for names. I bought a book (of course) and we started making a list. Ryan made his and I made mine. Rowan was a name I had heard before and really liked, but I liked it for a girl. I put it on my list anyways. After we both had a decent sized list we compared them and crossed names off we didn't like and made a new list with similar names. Ryan didn't really like Rowan so it was taken off the list. After several months went by of adding and subtracting names I put Rowan back on. Something about it I just really liked.
When we had about a month left before my due date we had narrowed the list to 4. We COULD NOT get it any narrower. There was something we liked about all four names. We had decided not to tell anyone the name since we found out the sex, but since we couldn't narrow our list any further I emailed my oldest brother for some advice. I knew he would keep our options a secret and give some honest advice. After a couple days he got back to me with exactly what I was hoping to get. He gave us his initial opinion when he first read the names, then his opinion after thinking about them for a couple days, and then his opinion after talking about it with his wife. It was great advice and helped us narrow our list to two. Here is a list of our top 4 in no particular order:
Eagan
Rowan
Avett
Quincy
At the time we had four I really liked Rowan and Eagan with Eagan probably being my favorite. Ryan really liked Avett and Eagan. After my brother's advice and a little more discussing we narrowed it down to Avett and Rowan. Avett was after one of our favorite bands the Avett Brothers and Rowan was just a name I liked. It happened to be a type of tree and coincidentally I have an obsession with trees.
Going into the final days we decided to just wait and see how we felt when he was born. Neither of us could make a definitive decision so that was the plan. I was really hoping something spoke to me when he was born cause I really didn't know if we could make a decision otherwise!
Once I was in labor and at the hospital I think we both were thinking Avett. It was unique, but not so unique it was weird. It had a special meaning for us and it seemed to fit. We had decided long ago that Wesley Robert would be the middle names in honor of our fathers. That's what I was thinking when the nurse said it was time to push...then he was born.
After he came out and I got to hold him, the nurses took him because he had swallowed a lot of fluid. Ryan was over with him and I could hear the nurses all talking about his red hair. I was thinking red hair, how in the world did he come out with RED hair! When Ryan came over and told me he really did have red hair I instantly said his name should be Rowan. The tree has red leaves and berries and the Gaelic form of the name means little red one. It was perfect.
Rowan Wesley Robert
aka:
Ro-bug
Ro-Ro
Rowie
Ro
There you have it, the story of how Rowan got his name (because I know you all wanted to know).
-Nicki
No comments:
Post a Comment