Naming your Children

I would call this “Baby Names” but they don’t stay as babies.  Those babies grow up.  My wife and I loved to name children so much we had four children, but could have named a dozen more.  We had a bit of a theme when naming our children.  Their first name was the name of a Character in the Old Testament.  Their middle name was from a family member.  Their last name was all the same – Smith.  There are many names from the Old Testament that we liked but did not use, like Jael “most blessed of women,” and Eve “mother of the living,” and Enoch “the one who walked with God,”  and Solomon “the wise one,” and Melchizedek “King of Peace” – okay okay I am the only one who liked Melchizedek.  We also could have named them from Lord of the Rings characters like Elesar, Eowyn, Arwen, Samwise, etc, etc.  Or we could go really bizarre and name them East African bird names like Carmine, Turaco, Crowned, Ibis, and Hornbill.  Catch me on another day and I am naming them Hebrew words like Emeth, Chesed, Ahava, Tov, or Greek words like Dikiosune, Aletheia, Kalae, Kolos.  Our theme for Old Testament names also extended that starting from the oldest child we went backwards in Old Testament history.  For those of you who know my kids names, we went from the beginning of the exile back to the beginning of the kings back to the beginning of the Exodus back to the re-beginning.  This helps since having four kids it is easy to forget which kid is which.  So what should you name your baby?  Don’t forget to think about initials.  J.F.K. is okay initials but Albert Sampson should not be a Smith name.