What's in a name?

*Even if you don't read this post in its entirety, check out the end and let me know your thoughts...

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Graham and I are not super secretive people.  We usually tell the news of our pregnancy around nine or ten weeks, we share our name options, etc.  We have decided upon our names for the baby and it is only natural for me to share/document what we have come up with.

Here's a little criteria we have when picking names:

• We prefer three-lettered names. (At one point we wanted to go with two syllable first names and one syllable middle names, but nothing panned out this time.  We threw that idea out the window.)
• We like older names. In fact, on some of the baby name sites there are lists of "old lady names" and "old man names".  We like to call them classic. :)
• This time around, more than ever, we wanted the names to have some true significance. (I'll get to that later)
• We never intended on our girls having "double-names"-- it just kind of happened.  Ava ended up being the most popular name of 2007.  We decided to call her Ava Grace. It felt natural for Edy to go by Edy Rose.  With that in mind, if we have a girl, she will probably go by her first and middle name.  But, if we have a boy, he will just go by his first name.  Like most kids! :)
• That's about all of the criteria I can come up with for now.  On to the names:

For the record, we will be THRILLED if it's a girl.  We love having girls and we know how they work! :)  We are still so thankful that God has given us this gift.  We are overjoyed and that is why, if we have have a girl, we will name her JOY TATUM.  JOY because of the joy we have in Christ and the joy we have because of this new gift.  TATUM because it's means cheerful and full of spirit.

We wouldn't know what to do if we had a boy!  We'd love it, but it's hard to even wrap our minds around it.  Like our girl name, we wanted a name of significance for our son.  Graham is named after a pastor, Billy Graham.  We liked the idea of using a pastor's name or a significant name.  I really wanted our son to have Graham's initials: GTH.  All that to say, if we have a son, we are naming him after the great Augustine.  Read about him HERE.  His name will be GUS TATUM.  GUS means great and TATUM means cheerful.  We thought that very fitting.

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I started this post earlier today and then got interrupted by a phone call.  It was a friend calling me to come and have an ultrasound by a friend of hers that is and ultrasound technician (I really don't know what to call her).  Anyway...I went.  BTW, it was a legitimate ultrasound at a hospital for those of you speculating.  The technician could not get the baby to be still.  It was really hard to get that one frozen "money shot" of the goods.  The technician finally got a pretty good peek.  Her exact words were, "I'm about 85% sure ... it's a BOY!"   At 15 weeks it could still be too early, though.

I go for my 20 week ultrasound in one month and I'll hopefully be able to say 'for sure' either way.  Soooo....I wouldn't say we are decorating a nursery quite yet.  It sure was fun to see the baby, though!