Show and Tell Tuesday: What's in a name

I thought I would get back into the swing of blogging with joining a link up with a new fave blog I started reading a month ago.  We are sharing today the background on how and why we chose our children's names, and even how we got our own names.

I have had a girls name picked out since before the hubby and I even started dating, because I was always convinced that I would one day be a girl mom, but God is always laughing at our plans and helping us realize that he knows better than us.  So when we were pregnant the first time we knew we were going to find out the sex, and since Gianni had agreed and liked the girl name that I was fond of we just needed a boy name before our scan.  What should have been half the battle ended up taking us until the night before our ultrasound to settle on what would be our first child's name.

We literally scoured a baby name book that my sister lent me and had settled on a few names that we liked, but we were having a hard time on finding a consensus on one name.  I was pretty partial to Luke and found the origin of the name was Lucas, which meant bringer of light.  Once I read what the name meant and told Gianni we just knew that we had found the right name.  We had just went through a year of fertility treatments and trying to figure out which meds would help us successfully conceive when it indeed happen through an IUI, we felt like we had finally reached the light at the end of the tunnel.  It just seemed right, and I couldn't imagine any other name for my son, he truly lights up our world in more ways than we could have imagined.  His middle name is Pietro, which is the same middle name as the hubby.  We had already agreed before conceiving that we weren't fans of the whole Gianni Jr. idea so we settled on using the same middle names.

We didn't settle on Marcus' name until after we found out we were expecting another boy.  All I could think of was how hard it had been to settle on a boy name the first time around and now we had to do it all over again.  Once more we both had our favourites and couldn't come to a consensus.  I was really fond of the name Christian but couldn't get the hubby to warm up to the name at all.  Also I'm Portuguese and there is a very famous soccer player of the same name, and the hubby just couldn't see himself naming his child that and have all our friends and family thinking we named our child after a soccer player so I conceded and we settled on the hubby's choice of Marcus.  However, I once again referenced the baby book to find out what the background meaning of the name was and it stems from the God of war and means strong; and it somehow fit.  We had gotten pregnant much quicker this time around at the clinic, however half way through the cycle that we conceived we almost didn't make it to the IUI and thought the cycle was going to be a bust but suddenly everything turned around and we indeed successfully conceived again.  A warrior already.  For the middle name one of my front runners for the first name had been Julian, but we wanted to upkeep the tradition of an Italian name.  When we were looking for names I realized that Guliano would work for two reasons, it was the Italian version of Julian, but also could honour my father in law Liano.  I really lucked out in the father in law department, and he is an amazing grandfather to the boys, and we just felt blessed to honour him in such a small way.

Funnily enough both the hubby and I were named after famous European singers that our parents liked.  Also my parents decided to not give any of us middle names, however originally as the eldest I was supposed to be named after my paternal grandmother Florinda, although bless her she was an amazing woman I'm kind of glad my father like Sylvie way more.  Ironically I am the mirror image of my grandmother, so at least I can honour her that way hehe.

Its funny really how after you have chosen a name and you see your child there is no other name that you could imagine for him/her.  I feel like both names also have come to encompass their whole personality.  Lucas just feels like the name of a rambunctious and loud boy, which fits our son to a tee, while Marcus feels like the name of a silent but kind soul, which in the time that he's been here fits him exactly.

Can't wait to read other mom's journeys to picking their little ones' names.