Saturday, August 20, 2011

A Rose By Any Other Name...

When it comes to naming your child there is a certain amount of pressure to pick a good name. Though as Shakespeare eloquently writes, a rose will still smell sweet regardless of its name.

Papa Jack holding Daniel {sadly this was the only picture we could find of Papa Jack}.

For us naming wasn't actually a huge chore. A few months ago we sat down and tossed around some names and Daniel mentioned that if we were going to have a boy he really wanted to use the name Jack. Jack was the name of his Grandfather or Papa Jack as Daniel called him. This man was very important to Daniel and instrumental in shaping Daniel into the man he is today. Unfortunately Papa Jack passed away about two years before I met Daniel.

Daniel and Cheree on Mount Rogers – the highest point in Virginia

When we finally found out that we were indeed having a little boy, Daniel and I discussed names over dinner. It was a fairly painless process and by the end of the evening we had narrowed our choices down considerably with Jack Grayson being the front runner.

Daniel with the wild ponies in the Grayson Highlands

Over the following weeks we would periodically mull it over before we finally settled on Jack Grayson Moore. Even after this determination we sat on the name for a month until we really felt certain this was the name we wanted to give our child.

Hiking on one of the balds in the Grayson Highlands

My dad actually offered some really great advice. He told us to yell the name out loud to see if it sounded right. So we did. We shouted it off of our back porch. And felt incredibly silly. But in the end, we were happy with our choice.

Hiking on one of the balds in the Grayson Highlands

Grayson comes from the Grayson Highlands in Virginia. It is one of our favorite state parks to visit as it is part of the Jefferson National Forest and Mount Rogers Recreation Area – famous for its open balds and wild ponies. We want our child to grow up loving the outdoors as much as we do. We look forward to taking him to meet the wild ponies, to hike the open balds and bike the Virginia Creeper Trail

Biking on the Virginia Creeper Trail

So Jack Grayson Moore is named in memory of his Great Grandfather and a chain of mountains that we love. We will be calling him Jack.

Biking on the Virginia Creeper Trail

5 comments:

  1. I LOVE IT. Very good solid name.

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  2. Thanks Sarah! Our other choices were more along the lines of "the name is cool." We are happy that we were able to settle on names that carry meaning.

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  3. Love the name. My grandfather also was named Jack.

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  4. I love the name - and actually would consider it for our child except our nephew is already named Jack, darnit! And Grayson is awesome too, I love the idea of naming a child with such meaning behind it.

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  5. Thanks! We were really happy to agree on names that had meaning. If we have future kids we plan to use places we love as part of their name.

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