Hunter Nicholas -- His Name

As you may remember from the previous Birth Story Posts, Hunter was born on a Friday evening after a day spent with Hubby.

You may also remember that Hunter was born about 90 minutes after I arrived at the hospital, and about 10 minutes after Hubby arrived at the hospital.

Hunter was born at 5:15pm and almost immediately after he was born, Hubby and I made the decision to try to get our four older children to the hospital asap so they could meet Hunter that night before bed instead of their waiting until Saturday morning.

We knew it would be chaotic, and a late night for them... but then they could sleep in on Saturday having already met their baby brother.

We did a fun gender reveal for them with a small balloon filled with blue confetti, and then we told them (and my parents, and the baby-sitter and her mother who were so wonderful to bring our kids to the hospital) the baby's name.

His name was Hunter Miller... middle name still to come.

The kids were so excited to meet Hunter, and Howard loved that the two boys were Howard and Hunter.

Then, we started face timing Hubby's side of the family so the kids could tell their Memaw and Pepaw, and Aunts and Uncles and cousins the exciting news.  That they had a new baby BROTHER, and his name is Hunter.

In all that fun and commotion, something happened that I did not expect.

Hubby and I have NEVER announced a name of our child before the child is born.  For one, we usually do not know the gender in advance.  We only knew that Lee Lee was a girl -- the other four were a surprise, so we were never sure of the name.  Secondly, we usually ARE NOT SURE of the name until the baby arrives.  Hubby and I have usually had a few conversations, but we are never 100% sure of the name prior to meeting the baby.

Not infrequently, we have made a last minute switch or discussion or compromise or further discussed the purpose and meaning behind one of their names.

And then we introduce the new baby to everyone with their First, Middle, and Last names already decided.

With Hunter, we knew the first name -- and I thought we knew the middle name if we had a boy, but earlier that day, Hubby had expressed some opinions that he was not sure of the middle name if we had a boy.

So, when Hunter was born at 5:15 in the evening, and we knew he and I were doing well, Hubby and I made the decision to get the kids and my parents to the hospital, and Hubby zipped over to a party store to get a balloon filled with blue confetti.  I tried to get cleaned up and settle myself and Hunter into our room at the hospital before everyone arrived.

Hubby and I never took the time to revisit the discussion of Hunter's middle name because we knew we had time.  The more important things at that time were making sure Hunter got to meet his family... and Hubby and I knew we would take the time necessary to discuss and agree upon a middle name after the commotion of everyone meeting their baby brother.

All that being said... here is what I never expected.

As soon as we told our family that his name was Hunter Miller, middle name to be determined, everyone had a suggestion as to what the middle name should be.

Not just one family member either, and not just one side of the family -- nearly every female family member that we told had her own opinion about what Hunter's middle name should be.  (By the way, none of them suggested Nicholas.)

They had some fine suggestions but we will never make that mistake again -- introducing a baby with a TBD name.  No suggestions needed, but thanks.

So... back to how we determined Hunter's name.

Hunter had been a name Hubby and I had on the table since I was pregnant with the twins.  If they had both been boys, they would have been Howard and Hunter.  While Hunter is not a family name from Hubby's side of the family, I feel like it is simply because they are all Hunters.  It is not just a fun hobby, or an excuse for men to go play cards in the woods, they love hunting.  They are skilled at hunting and they take their responsibility as hunters very seriously.  I feel as though Hunter is a family name from the Miller side.

Regarding his middle name, I thought we had determined the middle name of our second boy many years ago.  My entire pregnancy, I thought we were completely settled on the middle name if our baby was a boy.  But, earlier on Friday, Hubby had asked my thoughts for a middle name to go with Hunter, and I told him the name that I thought had been agreed upon years earlier, when Hubby dropped the bomb, that he didn't really like that name.

We discussed the reasons that I valued the name, and he expressed his reasons for disliking it and not feeling right about it.

Then, he said that if we took a tally of family names being used with our children, my family was in the lead and he should get to choose the middle name because more of my family names were being used with our children.

We went through and talked about which names counted toward each side of the family... and which names were not family names, but that we had agreed upon together for a different reason.

THEN he started sharing his suggestions for middle names.

They were not good.

They were very... out-there.

They are names that I did not even like a little.

So after much back and forth, I pointed out that Hubby was correct and that we had used more of my family names than his... but these names he was suggesting were NOT family names from his side.

I said that it would be completely different if he was suggestion a family name like... and I rattled off about four family names from his side, one of which was Nicholas.

As soon as Hubby heard the name Nicholas, which is his brother's name, I saw on his face that Nicholas would be the middle name.

Hubby is very close to his brother and has a great deal of respect for his brother.  I remember from when we were dating that Hubby would talk about his brother as whom he was closest to at the time.

I make it a practice to not talk about the names that we did not name our children because I don't want someone preferring the name we did not choose.  In this case, however, I will make one exception.

As I was rattling off names from Hubby's side of the family, I mentioned about four names, and two of them were Nicholas, and Stanton.

Now, Hubby's brother's name is Nicholas Stanton -- so both of these names would have fulfilled the purpose of honoring his brother.

By the time Hunter was born, regarding his middle names, (as far as I remember it) there were three possible names still on the table:  the original middle name that I preferred, Nicholas, and Stanton.

Then, after talking to all the family, there were about six names on the table... not really but it felt like there were because everyone had given us the merits of their favorite middle name.

In the end, both Hubby and I preferred Nicholas but one factor made us consider Stanton even longer.  Nick and his wife Mandy were expecting their third child in three days.  Literally, three days -- I had Hunter on Friday, and her C-section was scheduled for the following Monday.

They knew it was going to be a boy, and they had already chosen and announced the name of Sloan Stanton Miller.

Their first son Silas, and our first son, Howard, have the same middle names -- Howard James, and Silas James.

We liked Nicholas better, but it would have been cool for both sets of boy cousins to have the same middle names -- 

Howard James, and Silas James,

Hunter Stanton, and Sloan Stanton...

We actually called Nick before we made the final decision.  He was the only additional person we asked for his opinion about the name because it is he who Hunter's middle name is honoring.  We did not leave the decision up to him, but we took his thoughts under strong consideration.  Both Hubby and I preferred Nicholas, and Nick said, "I think Hunter Nicholas is awesome!"

And Hunter Nicholas he is, after his dad's little brother, his very special Uncle Nick -- who is a Hunter.