Yolande

One of my favorite things to do is to talk about baby names!

(And, while we are at it, I am posting an overload of pictures from Luke's Newborn Photoshoot that I took a month ago!!)

I love hearing about why people picked certain names for their kids, etc. 

When my friends tell me they are pregnant, I immediately want to talk Baby Names!

I love figuring out first & middle name combinations and  also how they flow with the other kids names.

(Just ask my sister Rebecca or my friends Kristin & Becky...I love talking to them about baby names!)

Many people have complimented us on Luke's name (thank you!) and have asked why we chose it.

This story dates back 10 years ago to the Fall of 2002.

Kevin and I had been married a few months and we were sitting in Borders one night, (oh, how I miss Borders!) drinking chai lattes. I was studying for one of my state teacher exams & he was doing work for one of his Real Estate classes. 

We were both procrastinating studying, so we started talking about our future children's names.

We both liked Katelyn (Kate) for a girl and Luke for a boy.

We thought the name Luke Larson sounded awesome, like a future Quarterback's name. Ha!

We said if we had 2 boys, the first would be Luke James (James is my dad's name and since he had 3 girls, we wanted to use it to honor him. Plus, my dad Jimmy is awesome and is a great guy to be named after)

 Our 2nd boy name was Grant Thomas.

 (Grant after an amazing kid I used to babysit who beat Leukemia TWICE and Thomas is Kevin's middle name and his dad's name).

We like simple, but strong, classic names.

I also like names that have good meanings.

The name Luke means "light"

Our prayer is that Luke would be a light to those around him!

So, what would we have named Luke if he was a girl?

We knew that if it was a girl, the middle name would be Alice after Kevin's grandma.

(As you can tell, we are all about using family names as middle names)

Kevin's grandma Alice was a really amazing woman & I never got to meet her because she passed away a few years before we started dating. Kevin's mom's middle name is also Alice, so it would be a way to honor his mom as well.

We had a harder time deciding on a first name.

One of my favorite girl names is Charlotte, so I wanted to use that.

I think it is a beautiful name. BUT, I was being OCD about having a K name and 2 C names.

And, I wasn't 100% sure about the flow of the names Kate, Claire & Charlotte.

Kevin wasn't sure about the name Charlotte.

 He wasn't sold on it, but for most of the pregnancy, our girl name was going to be Charlotte Alice. 

Then at about 38 weeks pregnant, Kevin vetoed the name Charlotte and wanted to use the name Emma.

(Emma was on our short list when I was pregnant with Claire)

I LOVE the name Emma, but I was a little hesitant because it is ranked #2 in popularity.
But, it was Kevin's "turn" to pick the name. We both named Kate, Claire was my pick (I had to convince him on that name) so technically, this was his turn to pick the name :)

I did love the way Emma Alice Larson sounded and I loved the way Kate, Claire & Emma sounded together. Then, I looked up the meaning for Emma and it means "whole". 

That sealed the deal for me because Baby #3 is our final baby that makes our family "whole".
All that stressing over a girl name wasn't necessary because we got Luke!

Click HERE to read about why picked the names Kate & Claire.

Here is Luke's birth announcement that I designed & made:

So, that is a little background on how/why we picked certain names.

I really, really, really love each of their names.
I love the flow of Kate, Claire & Luke. It will be easy to yell when they are all misbehaving. Ha!
Katelyn Grace, Claire Kristine & Luke James.
Hopefully they like their names as they grow up.

I think their names match their personalities (so far!)

Picking names was one of my most favorite things about being pregnant.

Anyone else obsessed with Baby Names?