What's In a Name?

     We're nearing the 24 hour mark and our son still doesn't have a name!  See, we weren't joking when we told everyone we didn't have a name.  We really didn't.  You would think that nine months and knowing the sex of the baby would make it easier.  Apparently not!
     Ryan and I had definite name ideas, there just weren't any names that jumped out at us and said "Pick me!" 
     From the beginning, I really liked Thomas, James, and Joseph.  Thomas is after my dad.  James is after Ryan's dad.  Joseph is after my grandpa who passed away a few years ago.  Each of the other kids is named after someone special to us and I wanted our little guy to have the same honor. 

1.  Andrew Lynde-  Andrew is my husband's first name, Lynde is my maiden name
2.  Chloe Leanne-  Chloe is a name we love, Leanne is my middle name, Anne is after my mother (Judy Ann) and Le after my grandma (Elsie Lee) and mother-in-law (Marci Lee)
3.  Lily Joleigh-  Lily is a name we love, Jo is after my grandpa Joe, and leigh is again after myself and my mother-in-law
4.  ????

     Ryan had a few names that he liked also.  His favorite was Reid.  We would go round and round with names.  We looked through a baby book, looked online, looked through the Bible, and even asked people on facebook for their favorite boy names!  With each day that passed, we were closer to my due date and still had no name.  Not to mention, that I was getting pretty upset with having to tell people that we didn't have a name.  It was literally on a daily basis!  I knew that people were getting excited about little man's birth and were curious.  Trust me I was excited too!

     Finally the day came and our little guy was born.  Again, I had to answer the question of his name about 100 more times after he was born!  We really didn't have a name.  I still like my Thomas, James, and Joseph.  Ryan really liked Patrick.  We kind of liked the idea of using Ryan or Andrew as a middle name.  We both also liked the name Rowan and Danien.  Now, we just had to narrow it down.

    The little guy was born at 2:37am on a Wednesday.  All through the day on Wednesday we talked about what to name the cutie.  We finally narrowed the list down to:  Thomas, James, Joseph, Patrick, Ryan, and Andrew.  Then we went through and tried all of the Thomas combos- Thomas James, Thomas Joseph, Thomas Patrick, etc.  We did that with each name.  This was Ryan's idea, he's a real math nerd and needs to try out each equation to be one hundred percent certain!  Then he had us circle our favorite out of each possible combination.  We then compared them and talked about what we really liked. 

     Ryan had Patrick in each name combination and I had Thomas in each name combination.  Ryan finally asked "Do you really want to name our son Thomas?"  I smiled at him and said "Yes."  He replied "Well then, we have a partial name!  Now to just decide what we should put with it."  I asked him about Patrick and he said he loved that name but also liked James.  Great, we were back to being undecided!

     Eventually, our little guy had a name!  It may have taken us awhile to decide, but we both love the name and we love the men that he is named after...Poppy Thomas Jerome (the good looking one!) and Poppy Fred "Fritz" James (the smart one!)  Don't worry about the nicknames, it's a long running inside joke in our family!