What's in a Name?

Sometimes nothing...... like Natalie Jade. This was simply a name that wasn't extrememly common that we loved. Jade came from a character's name in a book I was reading. We put the two together and loved it! This sweet little boy's name was a little different.

 

When we found out we were chosen by a birthmom carrying a little boy that was full Hispanic, we immediately Googled Hispanic names and began reading through a long list of boy names. Out of a very long list, 3 stood out the most that we both agreed on: Joaquin, Diego, & Cruz.  The more we tossed them around, the more we liked Joaquin. *Now for a funny side story regarding this name.  Several years ago my goofy dad told the family that he decided to change his name, and that we would have to start calling him by this name. Joaquin he said!  We asked him where in the world this came from and I think he mentioned something about it being a power name.  We laughed, but he held on to it for awhile=)  So, when Brian and I decided on using that name I knew my dad would be excited; we'd be naming him after my dad.....ha!

On to the middle name.  Since we only agreed on 2 other names we had to choose from these!  Brian has a friend with a little boy named Diego, so we moved away from that and towards Cruz. We liked the way it sounded and thought the initials JC would be cute with NJ!  Wait a minute you say. His middle name is not Cruz, right?!  RIGHT!  A couple of weeks after meeting our birth mom and learning more about her, Brian and I talked and decided we would like to offer her the opportunity to give him his middle name.  We felt this would be special for him one day, not knowing how much communication we would have with his birth mom after placement.  She was excited about the idea.  We did not learn of his middle name until the day he was born=) Kind of suspenseful and fun!  She was deciding between two names, one of which her mom was trying to convince her to use because it was a family name. She went with her own choice, Zavien. Where did she get it? She just came up with it because she wanted it to be unique! We LOVED it! Now we have NJ and JZ!

Proud Big Sister!