Choosing a Baby Name/ Choosing a Grandparent Name

Our daughter is the first grandchild on my side of the family. With adoption it is a little different than finding out the gender of your baby while in utero and naming him or her immediately. There is no doubt when that child is born, he or she is the name the parents have been calling it for the past four months. In adoption, sometimes you don't even get 24 hour notice to name the baby. Some parents opt to name their child AFTER she’s born. If I had waited to see what our baby looked like before naming her, we would have named her “Bertha” because when she was born the cord was around her neck and one of her little eyes was so puffy. Plus, I had never seen a baby born or even a few hours old. It’s tough coming through that birth canal!

My parents had already decided what they wanted our daughter to call them “Honey” and “Poppar.” “Honey” had actually been our dog's name, and I’m not really sure why momma chose it. “Poppar” is a fishing bait. So Honey and Poppar it was. Except when Erin started talking at an early age she couldn’t exactly say, “Honey.” Sometimes it came out “Nuney.” My personal favorite was the stint of time in which Erin called her “Hiney.” My mom has a cousin who is called “Lolli” and her husband is “Pop,” so together they are Lolli-Pop. Cute, huh?


Naming a baby is a huge deal. This is the name they will have the rest of their lives. I remember driving Erin to my mom’s one day, and at the ripe age of 2 ½ Erin told me she didn’t like her name, and she wanted to change it. If she had only known how long it took for her daddy and I to agree on her full name she would have known not to say anything. I told her how much I loved her name, and I asked her what she would have chosen for herself. She said, “G.” “G” was her grandmother her passed away this past year. Erin would go spend a week at a time with G in Mississippi since she was one year old. I told her “G” was already taken was there another name she preferred. She said, “Elmo.” Go figure! She was 2 1/2.

Thinking about choosing the name for your baby or choosing the name you would be called by a grandchild, niece or nephew – it’s something one ponders and thinks about before making that decision. Now can you imagine being responsible for creating a name for a whole species of animals? God brought the animals to Adam to name. What a daunting task that must have been! How exciting! How creative.

I have some very creative friends. They see things in general, every-day life and can immediately find a way to repurpose them or recycle them. They are just geared to that creative side. I, on the other hand, have moments of creativity, and I take them when I get them. In this instance, Adam needed to be creative because the names of these animals would last through Christ’s return. NO PRESSURE THERE!

Names are important. I hate to hear a person call another one names. I nip it in the bud instantly…of course, if it is a sweet, pet name then that is different altogether.

You know why God sent all those animals in front of Adam? Yes to name them, but also because God wanted Adam to realize he needed a match. He needed a mate. Genesis 2:20 says, “…But for Adam no suitable helper was found.” So God performed the first surgery. He took one of Adam’s ribs, closed him up and made woman. Then God brought the woman to Adam to be named. You ever wonder what Adam must have thought when he first saw Eve? “AHHH, yes! This is my partner. She looks and smells a lot better than that skunk I named yesterday, and it doesn't look like she'll spit like that camel.”

It just now dawned on me that up until this point, I have not read the name “Adam” or “Eve” in chapter 1 or 2 of Genesis. Do you find that odd? I find that odd. It isn’t until after both man and woman have eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil that we read their names for the very first time. Genesis 3:17, God calls Adam by name and disciplines him for his role in the fall of man. In turn, Adam turns around and names Eve. Isn’t that interesting?

Man and woman sin changing their complete relationship with God and each other, and in turn they get individualized names. Makes me wonder what if they hadn’t eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and chose to eat from the tree of life would they have the same names? Adam chose the name “Eve.” Eve means life. She would be “the mother of all the living”(1). Yes, man and woman had made a wrong choice. Yes, man and woman had sinned, but with God there is life after sin. There is hope. Life does go on giving us another opportunity to make better choices. Up until the fall, man had no need of hope because of the intimate relationship he had with God. There was nothing separating them, but when sin occurred a chasm, a great divide was placed between God and man that would only be bridged by a cross 2000 years later.

Thank you, God, for the hope we have in you because of the cross. Thank you, God, for knowing each of our names; for loving us so much you have our days numbered, steps ordained and hairs numbered. Thank you, God, for life and for redemption. I’m so thankful my name is “Child of God.”

(1) Patterson, Dorothy Kelly and Kelley, Rhonda Harrington. Women’s Evangelical Commentary Old Testament. Holman Reference. Nashville, TN. Pg 15