What's In A Name

 How did you choose the names of your children?
Do you know the story behind your own name?

I S A A C   L E E

Recently, I was reading this blog post about choosing names, and thought I'd write something similar.
Because, in retrospect, it's kind of a funny story.

It begins in the streets of D.C., when a homeless man touched my stomach and told me I would name my kid Jeremiah. I smiled politely and then immediately (most emphatically) decided that Jeremiah would not be my child's name, since I was, in fact, planning on having a girl, and as a rule, I dislike strangers who touch pregnant women's bellies.

Then I found out I was having a boy.  

So I did what any other self-respecting mama (who had only chosen girl names) would. I bought one of those run-of-the-mill baby name books and started flipping through the pages. All the way to Y.

... Which was how I discovered that Yehudi is actually an honest-to-goodness, bona fide name. Naturally I considered printing birth announcements welcoming YEHUDI HOLGATE into the world (with a big, bold, blue font).  

(I never had any intention of naming my kid Yehudi. I just love practical jokes. Now that I've admitted this, I'm positive no less than thirty Yehudi's will start reading my blog. In which case, I apologize from the bottom of my heart. It's not your fault, after all.)

I made a list. A short list. Yehudi, Jeremiah, Landon, and Liam. (I'm partial to 'L's. She says, so modestly.) I can't honestly say why I picked Liam, but I'll admit that Landon was a by-product of having watched A Walk to Remember (I don't recommend it), and deciding, in what I can only assume was Pregnancy-Induced Insanity, that Shane West (who plays Landon), was incredibly attractive and therefore his name should go on the list. Yes, that was how that went down.

Tim said (and I quote), "I hate it; Landon is a mama's-boy name."

So I pulled The Labor Card and we compromised. We'd name the child Landon if he turned out blond; Liam if brunette. As you can well imagine, with such logical reasoning as that, our child, the offspring of blond-and-brunette parents, had to be a redhead. Flaming orange, actually.

It was just as well. During the course of my twelve hour labor, I had decided (implicitly and without reason), that I absolutely hated both the names I'd chosen. (Disclaimer: I don't actually hate either of these names; I hated being in labor.) My decision was confirmed after his arrival.

Somehow, in that moment, I just knew. His name should be Isaac.

Isaac, for laughter.
Lee, after my mother's middle name.

... But we still occasionally tell people his name is Yehudi.