Sunday, March 27, 2011

The Story Behind Cole's Name

kites

Nicolus Talmage

When Michael and I were engaged, he mentioned one day that he wouldn't mind having a son named after him like his brother is named after his dad. I said, "Nuh-uh. Not happening. I am 100 percent vetoing the confusion of having two Michaels in one house." But then I proposed jokingly that we should name a daughter after him (Micah) and a son after me (Nicolus because my middle name is Nicole and I went by Nikki when I was little).

For some reason, that conversation stuck, and by the time I delivered our first little bundle of joy, we'd been planning to call our first baby Nicolus (or Micah) for two years. The weird spelling was our stupid attempt to make it look more like Nicole, and we went with the nickname Cole because we don't like the name Nick (or that might just be me).

When Cole started kindergarten, he decided he wanted to go by Nicolus at school. I wasn't surprised; I changed my own name from Nikki to Erin when I was seven. Like mother like son. I'm waiting expectantly for the day when he comes home and announces he wants to be called Nick.

His middle name is after the LDS apostle and historian James E. Talmage, whom Michael greatly admires.

I think this should be a meme! I want to hear how you chose your baby's names! Blog on your blogs or just comment here.

5 comments:

  1. We just wanted to keep it simple (read: monosyllabic) with our last name being difficult to pronounce without some coaching. Both of our boys have biblical names - one OT, one NT. Though that wasn't done purposely, I do really like the Bible stories involving their names. We also liked the mature, adult sounds of their names, and since we spend more years as adults than as children, we don't mind them having "old-sounding" names.

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  2. Ken and I made a deal: I picked a girl name, he picked boy names. We each had veto power though! A few weeks before Abraham was born, Ken showed me his list and we narrowed it to 3 names, but I knew at that point that Abraham Tucker would stick. It just felt right (Tucker is my maiden name). I'm a HUGE Abraham Lincoln fan and so I really liked the idea of using that name. Who knew in a few short years it would be just Hammer? Ken also had a list for second baby, but neither of us was sure of a name. When he was born on memorial day, we ended up with Tyler: a very good friend of mine who died when we were children from an unoperable brain tumor. His middle name is Asahel (ace-elle) after Ken's grandfather. He always felt that his grandfather should be honored by having someone named for him, but it had yet to happen. With both children there was a name on the list, always near the top that for some reason has never been used. I have a sneaky feeling baby boy #3 may end up with that name. Unfortunately I'll probably never have my Ann Marie.

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  3. I've loved Jaxon from pre-kids days but was too nervous to use if for Taye because of the singer Jackson Browne. Tyrone liked Taye and I thought it was great. By the second go round I had thought up a brilliant girl name - Scotia but that one was a boy and by then I was fine with using Jaxon. Then we got a blessed girl and she became Scotia. I love how it sounds and I love that it means home for me!

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  4. Oooh! I like this question (and I love your stories!)

    Seamus Dixon because Patrick's family is very Irish, and they always tell me that Sheila ( his grandmother's name) is the Irish version of Julia. I liked James as a solid boy's name, and so did Patrick, so when we discovered that Seamus (a name we also liked) was the Irish version of James, we snapped it up! James is also my grandfather's name. He was almost Seamus William after my father, but at the last minute (or like a month before) I decided to go with my dad's middle name, which was his grandmother's maiden name. Whew.

    While we were talking about boy names and had already settled on Seamus, we started throwing Gilbert around as a "good" name. When the ultrasound showed a boy, I was sad that I wouldn't be getting a girl, but P and I could never agree on girl names! Later Patrick wanted to name him Quinn, but I vetoed as I thought the name was getting to be too much of a girl name. (I've still never seen Glee, but I hear there's a cheerleader named Quinn.) Quinn is Patrick's mom's maiden name, and I do like it, but I stubbornly wanted my Gilbert (and I still want to go to Prince Edward Island!). So Gilbert Quinn was born. My advisor calls him GQ.

    Thanks, Erin. I always wanted to write this down!

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