What's in Your Name?

Stefan (honorific):

There are two things a woman starts planning for practically since birth...her wedding and what she will name her children. OK, that maybe too much of a blanket statement, but I'll venture to say a lot of you Ladies can identify. When I was first overwhelmed with being pregnant (I still can't get over how different it is to say, "I'll have children one day" than it is to say, "I'm having a child in 9 months, Holy ____!"...a whole new reality) I put off the naming thing. I'd have time, I thought, and that would actually be the fun part of the whole process, as opposed to becoming responsible and getting all the rest of my act together. Although, it took us months to name our last cat, who ended up being named after the place where he lived, the cellar, though we spiced it up by using the Dutch translation, "Kelder Kat". Unfortunately, considering that naming method for a child would yield  "House Baby", which probably wasn't the best choice. Next consideration:  the inevitable stress of picking a name that couldn't have anything obvious done to make it into an esteem-crushing child's chant. Suddenly Baby's name was going to matter. I had better really think through what I want because I don't want my kid to be "Lisa Pizza", or whatever other mutation of a name cruel children could come up with,  for the rest of her (or his) life;) OK, I liked that pet name created in first grade by my friends, Ron and Carolyn. I searched on name sites and then realized it may be better to wait until we know the baby's gender. At least it would narrow things down by 50%.

I had my girl name all picked out, but what if DH didn't go for it? No problem, I had a plan. I'd name the child if it was a girl and bestow the ultimate honor of baby naming on Sean, if it was a boy. To my dismay, it was no honor for Sean...more like another responsibility, and wouldn't be easy. Come to think of it, if I was in charge of naming cats, Kelder would have been Katsu like 2 days into the process. Ok to be fair, though it was Sean who kept vetoing my cat names, and Roofus, his final choice, wasn't acceptable for ME. I've come to realize our issue is not "naming", but "agreeing" on a name.

We went to the gender ultrasound full of anticipation. I was positive it was a girl for a week or so (in that 24 weeks), then thought it HAD to be a boy. The Chinese gender predictor said it would be so, and I was sick as a dog for the first 13 weeks, and due to this, people told me, it's definitely a boy. I didn't trust them, morning sickness was a predictor of both depending on who I listened to. I had this thought that in my heart of hearts, I'd know the gender without an ultrasound, because it was in me, I should have some psychic inkling, right?

Any way, it was a BOY! OK, that statement is not as exciting in hind sight;) Drats, I lose the name giving, but just in case the Dr. messed up seeing the Willy, I held onto my coveted girl name. Now...what to name a boy...

...um....something not too common....and Germanic....or Irish....not biblical...that people won't laugh at...
...........hmmmmm.....Well Fritz is his pet-fetus name, how about Freidrich? Is that a mouthful enough? It actually was the back-up name until I was sitting in the hospital, in labor, just before I had a little bit of medication to get me to relax between contractions. Sean was busy emailing while we waited for the real labor, and finally received the name idea from his parents. (Note: If it had been during that medication that made me forget I was in the hospital in labor, I'd have agreed to Jetta, so I'm glad we figured it out before!)

So Stefan, the story you've been hearing from me since you were born is "Stefan" was your Great-Great Grandfather's name from Daddy's side. A baker from Germany, he immigrated to New York and started a family here. "George" is from Mommy's Grandmother's side. Every generation, except mine, has had someone named George in it. Originally, great great great (I forget how many greats) uncle George was a rich man. (Perhaps is was George Eastman of Kodak, but I bet Great Great Aunt Elinor would shoot me down quickly on that one). Great Grandma Georgianna's father, George, was named that in hopes that he'd see the same wealth, and the same goes for Georgianna (or so Elinor says;). I hope, of course, the same for you, though I'd rather you have happiness in life over wealth, but hopefully you'll see both!

Stefan (Serbian Cyrillic: Стефан, en. Stephen) was a name adopted by all the Nemanjić rulers of medieval Serbia. The name Stefan is derived from Greek Stephanos, meaning "crowned with wreath (stephos)". All Serbian rulers after Stefan Prvovenčani ("the First-Crowned") added the name Stefan (Stephen) before their birth names after ascending the throne as a manner of honoring the earlier rulers of their dynasty Stefan Nemanja and Stefan Prvovenčani. From Wikipedia.

[ 2 syll. (s)te-fan, st-ef-an ] The boy name Stefan is pronounced STEHFaaN †. Stefan has its origins in the Old Greek language, and it is used largely in Czech, German, Polish, Russian, Scandinavian, and Slavic. Stefan is a variant form of the English Stephen. A variant of the name is the English, German, and Scandinavian short form Steffen.† English pronunciation for Stefan: S as in "sea (S.IY)" ; T as in "tea (T.IY)" ; EH as in "Ed (EH.D)" ; F as in "fee (F.IY)" ; AA as in "odd (AA.D)" ; N as in "knee (N.IY)" From baby namepedia

PS I should add a couple of the names you could have ended up with: Alexander (my favorite), followed by Ewan (my second favorite), and then there was Nigel (not my favorite, but interesting).