What's In a Name?

One of the most important roles of a parent, is to name their children. Our names help define us, and their meanings give us an identity; our self perceptions can be impacted by our names. In the Bible, meanings of names are very relevant. In Rwanda, names are given to exemplify character traits or significance... our friends there honored Bruce with the name, Mutabazi, which means rescuer, and our daughter Samantha with the name, Mutoni, meaning favored one.

And when we had our children, we took naming them very seriously. So seriously in fact, that none of them had a name till they were almost four days old, because my husband and I couldn't agree on their name. For days, the poor little things were lying there in the hospital nursery, with sorrowful tags on their bassinets dubbing them 'Baby Girl Edwards'. They told us we couldn't take them home until we named them (back in the old days, when they kept you in the hospital 3 or 4 days).

Not to be bullied by the pressure, we nonetheless took our responsibility seriously. Our youngest daughter, was pleasant and delightful, so we gave her the middle name of Eden. We would've chosen it as her first name but we were concerned that it was too unusual and she would resent having an unusual name. So we went with the feminine counterpart to Samuel, which means heard of God, and named her Samantha.

Our second born was a happy baby, and she made us happy... so we called her Ashley, which we sort of took from the Biblical name, Asher (means happy). Some baby books give the meaning, from the Ash tree meadow... but that is NOT what HER name means... it means happy! We gave her the middle name of Christina, which is the feminine counterpart to Christopher, or Christ follower. Pretty good so far.

When our first daughter was born, Emily was a popular name, and it means industrious, so we gave her that as a middle name. I had always loved the name, Leah, and thought it was such a beautiful name. Our baby was beautiful, and I really wanted to give her this beautiful name. We'd tell her that her name means industrious, and hard worker. She'd never have to know more, right?? And then... one day, when she was in high school, some big mouth was looking up baby names, and came across the name Leah, and told her that in Hebrew it means, ...wild cow. For days, she would look at me with glazed eyes and say "... wild cow?!?!? wild cow?!!?? " Fortunately, by that point in her life, she was confident with her identity. And, among other things, she is a hard worker.

Leah took that opportunity to start collecting cow paraphanalia. It was a good catharsis. On the other hand, Ashley started collecting monkeys. And Samantha collects lambs, and penguins. Go figure.