What's in a Name?

Jason and I have been working on our names for little Mo.  In case you don't know us in "real" life or don't see us that often, no, we are not naming our child Mo.  That's just what we've decided to call Baby until we find out whether Baby is a boy or a girl and we can pronounce a proper name.  I know that some of you don't like to refer to the baby as Mo because you feel that it's a boy name and you are certain that Baby is a girl.  I accept that logic and no one has to call the baby Mo if they don't want to.  To me, it's just more fun that calling Baby Baby, you know?

I know that when Mom was pregnant I was called Barney (as in Fyfe from Andy Griffith).  Charlie was called Fred (I'm not sure if that's in reference to the Flinstone's or just what my 2 year old self came up with).  So when we told Mom and Dad that we were pregnant we started talking about what we could call the Baby until January.  Someone (other than me) suggested that we call the baby Cozmo since, as a family, we are rather Seinfeld obsessed and can relate pretty much any situation back to an episode.  Being the hormonal pregnant person that I was I was determined that my baby was not going to be referred to as Cozmo over the next four months and so I proposed Mo as a solution.  And Mo it is!

Since we've been looking at baby names I decided to look up the meaning of our names to see whether they were accurate representations.  I mean, I don't want to name my child something that means, say, "mean person" if your name is really what you end up being like as an adult.  So here are the ones that I found at this website:

Jennifer - White; fair; smooth - ok I guess I am rather pale and white so I guess this fits kind of

Jason - Healer - hummm, Jason is definitely not a doctor so I'm not sure that this one fits

Allen - Rock - does this mean he likes rock music? Is hard headed? If so, both of those fit! :)

Amanda (my middle name) is the name that I think most fits.  Let me know what you think... :)

Amanda - in Latin it means "She Who Must Be Loved" - in Sanskrit it means "Active, Bright"

So basically this excersize told me that if you pick a random adjective or descriptive sentence it could probably be morphed to mean something that represents some portion of your personality.  But just because the meaning of the name is something doesn't mean that you have to follow that path.  I know, what a novel idea, I'm a genius.  I'm just saying, I think I've decided that the meaning of the name is not nearly as important as whether or not we like the name and don't mind saying it many, many times every day.

We do have names picked out both for a boy and a girl.  We'll announce that when we tell whether it's a boy or a girl.  We should find out in four and a half short weeks (probably January 8th) so make sure and get your vote in on the baby pool in the top right corner.  We'll lock that down before we go to the doctor so that the point accumulation can be fair.  

Does anyone want to share what their name means and whether or not you think it fits your personality?  I'd love to hear!