Naming

For our son, the middle name of Eliot had long been chosen.  My wife and I may have even plucked this name from as early a time as our last year of college.  We'd had no definite plans of children then and, in fact, we'd only just been married during the spring semester of our senior year - but we both agreed that, should the opportunity arise, this name was wholly agreeable, great even.  I chose the spelling.

For quite some time we had liked the first name Byron, mostly as a literary nod though neither of us, while not opposed to Lord Byron, were not tremendous fans.  For quite some time Byron Eliot seemed like a foregone conclusion.

To be honest I've never truly liked my own first name - Joshua.  During the 1980s and up through this year the name Joshua has remained fairly popular.  I was born in 1985, however, when it would seem the name reached a peak.  I can still remember elementary school and how the teacher would call out the name and several boys would all answer.  Add to that the fact that the namesake was of one of the worst of butchers to be found in the Bible and my lack of enthusiasm should be, if not understandable, at least justifiable.



Sometime later, after college, my wife proposed the name Sherwood (think author Sherwood Anderson).  The name does have a lovely ring to it.  It's dignified, unique without being obscenely moronic (think any celebrity baby names) and seemed to admit no weird invitations to teasing.  Except, we realized, the nickname "Woody".  Even still, before tossing Sherwood altogether we had begun to consider the middle name "Frost", a family name from my paternal grandmother's lineage.

My wife became pregnant during the spring semester of 2011.

One night while in our bedroom, before we were aware of the sex of our yet unborn child, I had decided to watch Oliver Stone's 1991 film The Doors which, in truth, was really more like a James Morrison biopic.

As Val Kilmer channeled James Morrison to an uncanny degree I turned to my wife.

"So, the director of this movie has one of the most badass names ever."

"What is it?"

"Oliver...Stone."

"Wow that is cool."

"Yeah, it is...hey, wait, what about Oliver?"

"As a name?"

"Yeah.  Oliver Twist.  Oliver Cromwell."

We looked up the meaning of the name on Behindthename.com and found that it had a few progressions of meaning.  First, it seemed to be a Norman French form of the Germanic name Alfher, which means "elf army".  Also, it was presumed to have possibly been the Norman French form of an Old Norse name, Olaf, meaning "ancestor's descendant".  The current spelling of Oliver (taken from the French Olivier) was meant to be modeled after the olive tree, the olive branch having been a symbol of peace since at least the 13th century.

We had our name, then resurrected the middle name of Eliot - and on 25 September 2011 - Oliver Eliot James was born.

He is not, however, in any way, named after Oliver North.  Let's just drop that right now.