How the Ihle Kids Got Their Names

John and I have always taken naming our children very seriously.  Who wants to saddle their child with a name that will get them teased, or a name that causes them to come to you at 25 years old asking why on earth you would do that to them?  Not us, I can tell you that.  With each child we spent many weeks, or sometimes months, pouring over baby name books, our family tree, and movies or songs that we loved to find the perfect name for each child.  And with each one it always came to a point where we knew exactly what their name would be and that it could never have been anything else.

 

Our first born may have been our most difficult to name.  We spent several weeks looking at baby name books, even buying a second book to find more names to choose from.  We also found a method that served us well in all three naming adventures to date, wherein I do the legwork of going page by page and writing down any potential names I find then run down the list reading them off to John and he gives me his first impression.  We usually end up with about 20+ names for each gender on the page, but by the end of the five minutes of me reading them off we have it down to about 5 or 6 for each gender.  Then over the next few days we go back and look at the list and eliminate any more that we find we can no longer stand.  We're usually down to just a few at that point and it then becomes pretty clear to us what we really like and we have rarely disagreed on our final name.

 

Anyway, when we were choosing Amelia's name we tried this method for the first time and got down to our round of names.  We both agreed that we really liked the name Amelia.  John spent a few years of college training to become a pilot, so his first thought was Amelia Earhart.  I thought it was a beautiful traditional name that would grow with her and not sound like she outgrew it by age 3.  We were stuck for a middle name though and couldn't think of anything we liked that sounded right with Amelia.  So we went to Phase 2--search the family tree.  While searching the family tree I actually discovered that Amelia is the middle name of not one, but TWO of my great-grandmothers.  We decided that sealed the deal for us to use Amelia as a first name if this was a girl. 

 

A few weeks went by and we were still unsure about a middle name.  One night I asked John if he had thought of any options for a middle name yet.  He said, "I think so.  How about Jean?"  His mother's name was Jean Anne, and she had passed away 4 years before we were married.  It was a perfect fit.  At around 32 weeks the ultrasound was finally able to conclude for sure that we were in fact having a girl (the 20 week scan was inconclusive), so Amelia Jean it was.  If she had been a boy she would have been Jonas.  I'm glad she was a girl because I don't care for Jonas so much anymore!

 



Just shy of two years later, when Amelia was about 20 months old, we found that we would be needing to jump on the Name Train again.  We started a few months in trying to look for names.  With Amelia I was convinced that she was a boy, and with Thomas I was convinced he was a girl.  So you can see how my instincts didn't serve me very well in those pregnancies!  John was convinced that Thomas was a boy, so he shot down pretty much all of my girl name suggestions, including my favorite, Sabrina.  At the 20 week ultrasound it was clear immediately that he was indeed a boy.  It still took us many more months of baby name book searches and family tree searches to figure out his name.  The problem was we were looking totally backwards.  John wanted to use Thomas as a middle name so we were trying to find a first name that we liked with Thomas.  Finally, on my way home from work one day, Thomas picked his own name.  I texted John and told him that I knew his name was to be Thomas Richard--Thomas for John's grandfather, and Richard for my dad and my grandfather.  John loved it, and so did I.

Lydia was the baby I never thought I'd get to have.  After a particularly difficult pregnancy with Thomas, and a particularly stubborn husband who NEVER EVER wanted to have more than two kids thankyouverymuch, it didn't look like we'd ever have more children.  To not get into the nitty-gritty details, we found out most unexpectedly in August 2012 that Lydia was due to arrive in April 2013.  We were in such shock that we didn't even discuss names until after the 20 week ultrasound that showed my instincts were finally right--we were having a baby girl.  Amelia Jean was so excited when we took her with us to the ultrasound and she heard it was a girl, which was only fitting since she had been praying for a baby sister since before we ever even knew we were pregnant.  John is convinced that it is because of these prayers that we ended up conceiving in the first place. 

 

Lydia's name was probably the easiest to choose.  We both loved the name Lydia, the first of our names not be a definite family name.  While it's not a family name, it is a nod to one of John's favorite Marx Brothers movies, At the Circus, in which Groucho sings his famous song "Lydia the Tattooed Lady."  While reading through my preliminary list of names I said, "I'm reluctant to even suggest this name because I know what's going to happen...Lydia...."  To which Predictable John immediately broke into song: "Lydia, oh Lydia, say have you met Lydia...."  Yep, I know the guy too well.  We decided within two days that Lydia was her name. 

 

We did argue a little on the middle name.  I wanted Catherine, for St. Catherine of Sienna, an incredible, strong woman who spoke her mind and who once said, "Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire."  Talk about a role model, huh?  John thought Catherine was too stuffy, and since her brother and sister both got a family name for a middle name it wouldn't be fair to not give her one too, especially since her first name wasn't a family name.  We decided we wanted to honor his grandmother Irene by giving her that middle name.  Irene was a strong woman too; a highly educated woman in a time when most women didn't have the opportunity to go to college; a woman who spoke at least 3 languages, had a heck of a sense of humor, and who stuck her tongue out at the camera every time it was pointed her way.

 

So that's how each of our kids got their names.  The funniest thing has been to see certain characteristics and features that have manifested in our children.  Amelia has Grandma Jean's gift of gab.  Thomas has the sense of humor of both Grandpa Richard's and the humor of Grandpa Tommy.  And Lydia has the humor and temper of Grandma Irene.