How My Boys Got Their Names.....

I have been tagged by Adrienne from Our Unexpected Journey to write how I came up with my boys names...this has been really fun reading everyone's stories as it has made its way around "blogland".


Well Luke's name was a "back up" just in case we had a boy, lol. I was so convinced we were having a girl and her name was going to be Ellie Rey (the Ellie was short for both of our maternal grandmothers who were named Eleanor(a) and the Rey was because we were living on the central coast at the time we were pregnant in one of our favorite places of all time, Monterey) But...........obviously we had a boy, so good thing we had a back up plan! I never knew how much I would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE being a mom to boys! Honestly I think it was God's sense of humor because I can never be surprised, somehow I always figure things out...but Luke Ryan was the best surprise of my life! I have always loved the name Luke and when Toby and I were dating I threw the name out there just to see if our relationship should go any further... ;) and thankfully he loved the name too. The middle name was tough for us at first...Toby and I both share the same middle name which is Lee (mine is after my dad's first name and Toby's is after a family friend) so you would think Lee would be the obvious choice but Luke Lee sounded like he would karate chop you in half....so we went the baseball route instead. Toby played baseball for the Seattle Mariners for a few seasons as a left handed pitcher, so we decided to give Luke a name from a pitcher Toby admired, Nolan Ryan. The Ryan is also after a very good friend of Toby's who was his catcher in college...they were both drafted after college, Ryan to the Tigers. We discussed whether we should actually give Luke the name Lucas wondering if maybe that went better with Ryan...but in the end decided that Luke is the name we really liked and to stick with it rather then to call him a nickname version of Lucas. However, Luke has goofy parents and we actually find ourselves calling him Lucas, even though we decided against the name, about 50% of the time. In fact, most people think his name really is Lucas because we say it so much.
Then came Reid Maddux five and half years later....I do not know where I first heard the name Reid but loved it and brought it up to Toby on a plane ride coming back from Seattle. We had a really hard time getting pregnant after Luke and even had a miscarriage in between these two. So our discussion on the plane ride was very "hypothetical" ...." if we ever had another baby..." but we decided then and there that we loved Reid and if another baby boy was in our future he was going to be our little Reid. Again the middle name stumped us at first, but decided that if one had a baseball name the other needed one too, so Reid's middle name is Maddux after Greg Maddux, another baseball pitcher. Reid's name couldn't be more perfect for him....he loves to "read" just about as much as he loves to play baseball...he will pick up anything including a carrot and make it into a baseball bat and throw anything he thinks is a ball as evidenced in this previous post. Again, goofy parents this little one has and we find ourselves calling him, "Reider Peter Punkin Eater" all day....and I have often wondered if people think that Peter is his middle name. I am sure we confuse the heck out of people...I know I am ;).
So, that is the story behind my boys' names... you even got a little bonus with Ellie's story though she never made her way into this world of boys over here ;)...at least not yet (Oh did I really just write that?!?)
I am now going to tag;
Down with Oz
Three's a Charm
Life with Bubba, Chicky, and Nika