What's in a name?

We have had the hardest time choosing a name this time around. And one of my worst nightmares came true! We chose the wrong name for our child. I guess I've heard of it happening but never knew anyone personally that actually came home from the hospital, having chosen a name for their baby, only to regret it and end up changing it shortly after. And that is exactly where we found ourselves only days after getting home from the hospital with our new son.

What's in a name, you might ask? Well, to me a name says A LOT! We always put so much agonizing thought into the naming of our children that when this happened to us I had no idea what we were going to do. At first I thought it was just because the name was a late comer onto our final list and that we weren't used to it yet. So we tried to get used to it. We tried to find fun nicknames. We tried to love it. But you shouldn't have to try to love a name, you should just love it. When we would tell people his name we would kind of choke on it and we weren't excited to tell people like we were with our girl's names. We have nothing against the name itself, obviously because we chose it in the first place. But it just wasn't working.


I'm also a bit of a hormonal mess right now so I was worried that all the turmoil and yes, even crying attributed to that. But when I finally got brave enough to tell Richard how I was feeling he admitted feeling the same way, minus the tears. So we talked and thought and prayed and came to the conclusion that we had to change it or it would always kind of bother us, no matter how used to it we got. After the decision was made we felt so much relief and peace about it.

Now, what's in this name that we're so crazy about?

Alvin Knox Lemon.

With these three names, our son will be named after 5 generations of his paternal line, the Lemon line. He shares Lemon with his dad, Alvin with his grandpa and great-grandpa and Knox with his second and third great-grandpas. All of these men were/are strong, faithful priesthood holders and just really good men whom we hope our Alvin will emulate. He is all Lemon, in looks anyway and it just seems fitting that he be named after them.

I had a very personal experience last December. We were already fond of the name and had picked it out as a possibility if our second daughter had been a boy. We were trying to get pregnant and actually were but didn't know it yet. During this time I had a dream. I saw the face of a little baby boy and the words came to my mind, "Little Alvin is coming." It was as short and simple as that but so special. I wanted another baby and I really wanted a son. We found out a couple weeks later that I was expecting! Because of that dream I was sure the whole time that we were going to have a boy.


Other reasons we love the name:

Alvin means 'noble friend' and we love that it is unique and old-fashioned.


Knox is just solid and awesome and will be a great nickname.

When I look at the above reasons of why we love the name I wonder how we could have ever chosen anything else over it. There were definitely some outside influences and cons of this name that played into our earlier choice. And maybe we were supposed to learn something from all of this. One thing I was reminded of is that our Heavenly Father loves us and cares about what we care about, even when it seems insignificant. And He will help us with absolutely anything when we ask.

It has been a ridiculous situation that I hope to never be in again but we are so happy about the change. And for the first time since he was born I want to share his name with everyone!