The Name Game

Going along with my previous post, I thought I'd share a little bit of my experience with one particular aspect of naming a baby that I like to call "the lineage effect". As I stated before, Henry and I played the deal breaker game when we were dating. You might recall that one of his items was that he wanted to have at least one child of his own. What I didn't mention before was that if the child was a boy, he wanted to name it Henry, no middle name, just Henry. My Henry doesn't have a middle name, nor does his father or his father or... you get the picture. What they do have is a suffix. My father in law, who goes by Hank so as to not be confused with his father, Henry, is a Jr. I think his father was a Jr. as well. My Henry is an III. The story goes that he was to be named Jr. but his parents were told that the hospital didn't allow you to name a Jr.'s junior a Jr, so they had to name him the third instead. Hank's argument was that he was a Jr., and his dad was a Jr., so why not? :) Anyway, years after my Henry was born, some family tree stuff was done and it was determined that he was in fact not the third, but the sixth. That's right, XI not III. So given this information, he wanted to name his son Henry XII in order to correct the lineage suffix thing. My argument to this was that wouldn't our Henry wonder what happened to IX, X, and XI? Anyway, I agreed to this naming thing even though I thought it was ridiculous. My secret plan was to work in a middle name if we ever had a boy. ssshhh!
A couple of years later, we were pregnant and the whole name thing came up. I fought tooth and nail to end this string of only Henrys, and I petitioned for a middle name. My argument was that it was still the same blood line even if the name Henry wasn't anywhere in his name, and record would show that the line lived on regardless. I got a long story about how the original Henry moved to this particular area and so on and so on, and about how the name didn't mean anything here but it did there. I was even driven up to the top of this crazy high hill by means of this tiny little road (think about those crazy roads on the side of a mountain and add in a tree lined dirt road factor) in the freezing weather so that I could see this monument that was erected in his honor. Still, the thrill of carrying on the exact name with a numerically climbing suffix didn't appeal to me. My Henry was extremely firm on this namimg issue and thus our first serious argument. He was mad, something I hadn't seen up to that point as he's really laid back and easy going. I liked the name Henry for him, but it seemed like an old name to tag a new kid with. I was ok with it as a first name as long as the kid had a middle name that was something cool and not as drab as Henry. This became a mini family feud as his family backed him and I felt like the wicked witch. They were extremely adamant about it, which made me hate it even more. My family doesn't do things like that really, and if they do it's in conjunction with another name that the kid actually goes by. If I was forced to passon this name, I was going to have a son with a name that I hated. My resistance had nothing to do with the people it was associated with, it was on principle alone. Some people would think this lineage name was cool, and admittedly it is a very hard thing to carry on as long as this one has been going unless you are some sort of nobleman, but I was not one of them. I didn't mind being the one to end this over extended name thing, a name change was long over due in my eyes. 
My moment of triumph came when we found out we were having a girl. At last the argument would end, and I would win by default if by no other means. I was ok with that. Kinsley was born, and months and months went by. I think it was my love for his father that finally saw the tide start to turn. I started pondering that maybe the name wasn't so bad. Maybe an old name in a rebellious society filled with cheap made up names was a good thing. Maybe it would seperate him from the rest. Maybe Henry was a cool name afterall, it's even gaining popularity again. The wheels started to turn as I felt more like a member of their family instead of just someone who married in. I started to embrace the name, and realize that it was more about a tribute to those who have meant something to us rather than just some weird tradition. Today, I embrace this lineage name. I'm not sure if we're going to have any more kids, but if we do, and if it's a boy, he will be named Henry with eagerness, pride, and respect. I will say that I dread it for his son who would be Henry the VIII, but I'm sure very very few people will know the words to that song by then. ;) -Kellie-