Would a rose smell as sweet by any other name?
Names are definitely a hot topic around the Stilley household. Six weeks to go till Child #5 arrives and we haven’t even managed to put together a short list of name possibilities. I am convinced that it will be easier for John McCain and Barack Obama to decide on what name will be on the ballot as their running mate than it will be for us to come up with a name for this child.
We came to quick agreement on names for Parker Jordan, Daniel Willmann, and Gabriel Paige. But, with Tessa, Susan had been in labor for about six hours before I gave in. Susan leveraged her pain and agony to get the name she wanted. And, I’m glad she did. It is hard for me to imagine Tessa by any other name.
How different would Tessa have been had we given her a different name? How would her life have changed? Would people have treated her differently?
Yesterday, I was chatting on the phone with my mother and mentioned that we still didn’t have a name. She said, “I have a name for you — John Paul. That is the name I wanted to give you.” Wow, I’m forty-six years old and just now learning that I almost went through life with the name of the Pope. Instead, my mother named me after a boy from high school who she says was cute (that’s code for “had a crush on”).
Anyway we labor on, pun intended, in our pursuit of a name. I am thinking about possible corporate sponsorship of the child in exchange for paying our hospital bills.
What do you think about the following — AT&T Stilley, Verizon Stilley, iPod Stilley, Viacom Stilley?
