The Name Game

I always thought that thinking up names for my future children was quite fun and exciting until I was actually pregnant with said children, at which point it became stressful. I think it was partially due to the pregnancy-brain total lack of creativity that happens to me when I'm growing a person inside myself (and that I've mentioned before), and partially the realization of what a huge deal it is to give someone a name. A name is a major part of one's identity, especially in the early years . . . these days Luke and Jaz get excited even about other words that simply begin with the same letters as their names, as if those words are somehow a part of themselves . . . and I suddenly felt that by choosing my children's names, I was also, in part, defining who they would be.

I don't think Lena was quite as stressed as I was about the whole naming thing, but she was no more inspired. I really don't think we had any clue about what we were going to name the babies until one day when we got a letter in the mail.

I was about 16 weeks pregnant, and the letter was from a friend who had moved away and was responding for the first time to the news of the pregnancy. Her chosen last name is "Jasper," and she wrote in her letter . . . "as for names, if you have a boy . . . duh . . . 'Jasper!'" And Lena and I looked at each other and thought, "she's totally right! Of course!" Later that week we found out that one of our babies ("Baby B") was a boy, and he became Jasper (people are always curious about how I could know which baby was which inside me. Since "Baby B" was attached to the right side of my uterus, and "Baby A" was attached to the left side, they could not switch places. We also knew that Baby A would be born first, due to being located closer to the "exit"). We knew from the start that we would call him "Jaz" for short.

We still didn't have any idea about what to name "Baby A," no girl or boy names whatsoever. A month after discovering that "Baby B" was a boy, and naming him Jasper, we went in for the big deal ultrasound (where they checked to make sure that the babies were not sharing blood flow), and found out that "Baby A" was in fact, "Jasper's brother" (we had been referring to him as such, figuring that we would end up with twin boys). The ultrasound technician was not used to seeing lesbian families in her office, as was made apparent by the fact that she felt the need to tell us about her lesbian friends who also had a baby boy. Her friends' baby boy was named "Lucas." And, since we like to follow in the foot-steps of other lesbian moms, we decided to name our second boy "Lucas" as well (in reality, of course, we just liked the name and for some reason hadn't thought of it before). It just seemed right. As had Jasper's name. Later on in the pregnancy, someone asked us how we were going to spell the name, "Lucas" or "Lukas," and while we hadn't yet thought of using a "k" in place of the "c," we instantly preferred that spelling (and it made more sense to us since we knew that we would also call him "Luke"). And that's how Lukas got his name.

The middle names were easier to come by. Since the babies would have Lena's last name (we were not yet legally married, and I had not yet changed my name to take Lena's name, though it was the plan), we wanted to give them middle names from my family. We chose to give Lukas my middle name, "Beach," (also my great-grandmother's maiden name), and we gave Jasper my little sister's middle name, "Lee" (my older sister is named "Jes," so I felt like we were naming "Jasper Lee" after both of my sisters). Lukas Beach and Jasper Lee were born a couple of months after we named them, and I was really glad that they already had names because I think it would have been much harder to name them after seeing their faces. Before long it seemed like we'd chosen perfectly.

newborn Lukas Beach

newborn Jasper Lee

After the stagnant experience of trying to think up names with my pregnancy brain, I decided that any future names would probably best be decided upon in my not-pregnant state. This realization has allowed me to think way too much about the names of our third and fourth children. Zeben's name first started to come to me two years before he started growing in my womb. Luke and Jaz were nearly two years old, and my fertility had just returned. I suddenly had a vision of our third son, and I felt very strongly that his name would begin with the letter "Z" (which I loved the idea of since one of my very best friends from childhood has a "Z" name).

At first I thought his name was "Zeke." A little while later, I thought of giving him the middle name, "Alexander," which is a family name (and would also be reference to my given name: Alexa). "Zeke Alexander" lived on in my mind for quite some time until my wife finally got the memo that we were meant to have a third child. And then, just when we were ready to start adding sperm to the mix, "Zeke" didn't sound right anymore. I still loved the name, but it didn't feel like it was our baby's name. I like to think that babies choose their own names, and it very much felt that way with Zeben. I was driving our long daily drive from the hills down into town, and the name "Zeb" just popped into my head. I wanted to give him a longer name that we could shorten into "Zeb," and somehow I thought of "Zeben" (one thing I love about the name Zeben is that it's almost a palindrome. Especially if you write it in capital letters: ZEBEN. I love palindromes). When I mentioned it to Lena, she agreed that 'Zeben" would be our baby's name . . . if we were to get pregnant, and if the baby were to be a boy, of course. Lo and behold, I did get pregnant, and the baby was a boy, and we named him Zeben. For a while he still had Zeke's middle name of "Alexander," until another long car ride where I realized that it wasn't quite right. The other kids had two-syllable names followed by one-syllable middle names, and I wanted to follow the same pattern with our third child (my sisters and I all have three-syllable first names, ending in "a," followed by one-syllable middle names . . . I guess that's where I got the idea that siblings' names should follow a pattern). "Sky" was a name that I have always loved, and that we gave to our third puppy (who, tragically, died just a week after Luke and Jaz were born when he was only 18 months old).

Sky, the puppy, 3 months old

When I added "Sky" to Zeben, it sounded perfect: Zeben Sky. And when he was born, there was no question that we had named him well.

newborn Zeben Sky

Two summers ago, when Zeben was less than a year old, I started to get a sense about our fourth child. I knew that I would not give birth to this baby (though at the time I thought that meant that we'd be adopting, not that Lena would be getting pregnant), and I got a very strong "O" feeling about the name. Actually, the name that came to me was "Ori." I mentioned it to Lena, and she rejected both the name and the idea that there would be a reason to think up a name in the first place. But the sense that our "O" baby would come to us one day stayed with me for the next year until Lena surprised me with the news that she did want to grow a baby after all.

This current pregnancy is the first time we have ever thought of a girl name. Lena was kind of feeling the name "Kai" for a girl but I was not a fan. First of all, the name had to have two syllables to fit with the other kids' names. Lena then suggested "Kaia." I liked it better than Kai, but not quite enough. It felt too trendy to me. I also wanted to pick a name that somehow reflected Lena better in meaning (I think of our fourth baby as our "Lena baby," which is perhaps somewhat odd since I certainly don't think of any of our other babies as our "Lex babies," just because I gave birth to them. But because this baby will be the only one of our four children to come from Lena's womb, I want to honor that somehow). Lena is a Forestry student and an avid tree and river-lover. We tried to think of a river or tree name. We briefly considered the name "Castanea," which is the Latin name for "Chestnut." We could call her "Cass." But, of course, it is way more than two-syllables, and it isn't exactly pretty. Next we thought of "Willow," which we both liked, but we worried that maybe it was too new (I love names that were hugely popular in the 1800's but that have since become less common--true for Lukas, Jasper and Zeb). Finally, my sister mentioned her friend's new baby, "Koa," and I loved it instantly, especially the strong "o" sound (in keeping with the original "O vibe" that I got about our fourth baby). It turns out that "Koa" is a type of tree, once used to make canoes, that grows in Hawaii (thus bearing some resemblance to Lena's original choice of "Kai"). The meaning was perfect. I also really liked how it fit with the other kids' names, especially since Zeben's name starts with the last sound in Jasper's nickname ("Jaz"), and Koa would do the same thing with Lukas ("Luke"). (Yes, I really do think about things like this, at least when I'm not pregnant). For a middle name, we decided to use the second-half of Lena's middle name, Suffrane (which would sound like "Rain," and thus fit well with the other kids' naturey-middle names (granted, Jasper's middle name, Lee, is not exactly a nature name. But because of "Beach" and "Sky" and our last name beginning with the letter "F," people often think that Jasper's middle name is "Leaf" when he says his name). Our baby girl would have been named "Koa Rane."

a Koa Tree

"Koa," like many Hawaiian names, can be used for a girl or a boy, but it didn't feel right for our fourth child once we knew he had a penis. We talked about maybe using the name "Silas," which would have been Lena's name had she been a boy (and there's a fabulous family story about how when Lena's mom was pregnant with Lena and her twin sister, Addie, Lena's mom and dad explained to Lena's then 2-year-old brother Ethan, that there would be two babies. Choosing to keep things simple, they shared with him their first choice girl and boy names: Addie and Silas. When they returned from the hospital and introduced the young Ethan to his baby sisters, Addie and Lena, Ethan responded with a confused and sad, "where's Silas?"), but while I love the name, something wasn't sitting quite right. I didn't particularly like how "Silas" and "Lukas" both end with "as," since I enjoy the fact that at the moment our three kids all have different name endings: "as," "er," and "en." And then there was the "O" factor. Which is entirely missing from "Silas." Since Lena had rejected all possible beginning-with-O-names, I started thinking of ending-with-o-names. And I asked around, and a few people suggested "Leo." And it struck me right away because Lena is a Leo (astrologically), and she's such a Leo at that. She has the constellation of Leo tattooed on her shoulder.

Lena's Leo Tattoo

She has a huge collection of stuffed lions. She is a Leo to the max. Also, I like that "Leo" is three letters (like Koa and Ori . . . and Lex, come to think of it), and that it shares a first letter with Luke and the beginning sounds of Jasper's middle name, Lee. The middle name we had thought of for Koa, "Rane," did not sound good with Leo (too many vowels, not strong enough), so we started trying to think of an alternative. The limitations were: one syllable, somehow linked to some sort of family member, ideally nature-related, and somehow Lena-related. I got the clue from Lena's feet.

The first of Lena's many star tattoos

"Star" is one syllable (check!), is also the middle name of my sister's son Ezra, the cousin who will be closest in age to Leo (check!), is certainly nature-related (check!), and happens to be one of Lena's most favorite things (check!). Giving Leo an "S" middle name also gives him the same LSF initials that Lena has. Perfect. The middle name, "Star," also links Leo to Zeben, since Stars are in the Sky, and they both start with "S" (you had no idea how complex this could be, right?).

We'll wait until he's born (we're half-way there!) to make it officially official, but for now we're calling our fourth little one, "Leo Star," and falling more and more in love with him everyday.