Ta da!

So, as promised, I am announcing the name that we have decided on for our son. We reserve the right to change our minds up until or after the little guy arrives, but I doubt that will happen.

Can I just say, picking a boy's name is HARD! And when your daughter's name is Coranelle (which has no actual meaning because the name doesn't really exist except for within the family), picking a name is even harder. How can you have a daughter named Coranelle and a son with a really simple name like Sam, Mike, Bob or Joe? There is nothing wrong with those names, but it doesn't seem to fit with Coranelle. So, we thought about choosing another family name, but then didn't like the names Archibald, Harry, Howard, Edward, or Holger found in the family tree.

So, we looked at our name book over and over and over. And we had a hard time agreeing. Really hard. Let's see- I liked Sawyer (Ryan thought of Lost), I liked Ezekial (Zeke for short), but Ryan wasn't crazy about that. I liked Jonah, Tobias and Sullivan. After contemplating each of these, Ryan wasn't thrilled about any of them.I decided I liked names that started with the letter "S" but couldn't really find anything we both loved.

We had a name picked out for a boy before we knew Coranelle was going to be a girl. We were going to name him Ezra Oliver. Over time, both of us lost our passion for the name Ezra. And Ryan's cousin named her baby boy Oliver, and we didn't want to steal that one. Then I decided (with my Spanish background) that any boy name that ended in an "a" seemed feminine to me. So, that knocked out a few more.

Further, we don't want a really common name. I don't want to have 6 kids in my classes in the future that share the name of my son. Whew! This was getting to be difficult.

Let me warn you, the choosing of our son's name is not really sentimental or spiritual, so don't judge us. One night we were watching the Big Bang Theory. We don't really watch much TV at night. I like watching Parenthood on Tuesdays and that's the only show I would be sad to miss. We often watch the Office on Thursdays because Josh and Claire come over to watch it with us after working out at the gym. But, we sort of stumbled across Big Bang Theory and thought it was amusing. So, we bought the first few seasons on DVD and were going through them. After watching a rather amusing episode, Ryan asked me... "How about Sheldon?" At first, I just kinda laughed because there is a Sheldon on the show and he is the most quirky, nerdy, eccentric, strange genius that could ever have been thought up. He has his PhD in Physics and an IQ of 1000 or something. But, upon hearing the name more, and thinking about it, we both liked the name- a lot! Now, to be clear we are not naming our son after this character in the silly show, that's just what brought the name to our attention. And it doesn't hurt that every time we watch an episode, Sheldon makes me laugh and smile... and there cannot be anything bad about that!

So, Sheldon it is. And we are passing on Ryan's middle name to our son to add a little sentiment to it- also we really like Ryan's middle name. It had a perfect number of syllables, a nice sound and a perfect meaning. So, there it is- Sheldon Christopher Mork. Pretty great, huh? Actually, I don't really need your approval- we think it's pretty great. When Coranelle talks about Baby Sheldon, she calls him Shla-la. I think she'll get it soon, but for now it's cute!

Before we first bounced the name across a few people to see their reaction, Ryan's dad told us that the name should have a good meaning. This is humorous because I think Sheldon means "Steep hill" or "town in a valley". Neither of those meanings has a whole lot of value to us, but we still really like the name. And a name that has made me smile and laugh and look at life a little more light-heartedly during my pregnancy has a good value to me. So there you go... Look forward to meeting little Sheldon Christopher Mork in about 3 months. We're excited!


PS- Now that you know his name- weigh in and let me know your guesses on when the little guy will be born and how much he'll weigh. He is due April 14th. His "big" sister was born on her due date and weighed a whopping 6 pounds 6 ounces. I have thoughts from Ryan, Josh, Claire, Bruce and Heido and will post them all as well as whatever anyone else guesses. We'll see who gets closest!