Havin' a Gavin

Well, it's officially been two whole weeks and we haven't changed our minds yet, so it looks like JJ is going to be "Gavin". It's probably the only name that managed to get on both of our "top" lists for any amount of time, and we haven't been able to come up with any inappropriate "Pee" jokes to defile it.

I don't know why it was so incredibly hard for us to choose a boy name. Back in 2007 when we were trying to come up with a girl name, we had a boy name all picked out ("Xander") and thought finding a girl name was impossible. This time around, I guess because we actually had the responsibility of choosing the boy name, nothing seemed to stick! Of course, there's always the possibility that no matter what we name him on his birth certificate, I may just end up calling him "JJ" anyways. :)

Apparently I like names that belong to kids growing up in the Upper East side of Manhattan: Cooper, Carter, Eamon ... I just can't help myself. And then James seems to prefer names that belong in the NBA or NFL; hard to find much compromise here.

Some of our funnier name stories:

• Name story #1: I originally thought the name "Ian" would be perfect because I thought it was the Celtic version of James. Ian Pee! Well, I do some quick Googling and find that Ian is the Celtic version of John and that the Celtic version of James is ... wait for it ... Seamus. SEAMUS PEE?! No way. Even after I found out it was pronounced SHAY-mus, it still doesn't fly for me even though James thought it was hilarious. You can thank me later, my son. :)
  
• Name story #2: Another idea was to try to find names of famous James' (or Jimmies). I liked Carter but then the thought of having a Claire and a Carter, both perfectly fine retail stores but odd to name your children after them, was a little too much. Somehow we stumbled on Hendrix of Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix / Hendricks! After giving it more thought, it didn't stick. Would we be naming Hendrick after the motorsports company -- go Jimmie Johnson! -- or after the gin? It was just too much.
  
• Name story #3: We even thought about going "out there" with names, and James got hooked on Orion. I was okay with Orson and would even consider Apollo (if Ono can do it, maybe we could, too), but I just couldn't buy into Orion which was a perfect reason for James to get stuck on it and torment me which gave me even more reason to stick to Quinn (which I still love) but James would not OK because it reminds him of Dr. Quinn, medicine woman, too much.

The actual name "Gavin" is a Welsh name that means "white hawk of battle". Well, those Hunan people were quite the warriors, so I guess that works. Plus, it's a variant of Gawain, one of King Arthur's knights of the Round Table, which definitely works for me. Claire's middle name (De-Ling) means "a wing to fly"; odd considering how I'm not exactly a bird person, huh?

No promises that we'll actually leave the hospital with a "Gavin" and not an Ian, Quinn, or Orion, so no personalization, embroidery, or announcements yet, but at least this should appease you people who have been dying to know!