What's in a Name?

This naming stuff is hard.  In Genesis 2 God brings "every animal of the field and every bird of the air...to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living thing, that was its name."  I don't know how Adam managed it.  Perhaps getting to name a blue million creatures makes it easier because you can basically choose every name you could ever want and still have things like a blobfish or a star-nosed mole left to just sucker punch.  Regardless, the power of naming something is significant.  You have to think about middle school, initials, possible disturbing rhymes, etc.  And, of course, it is just the start of the big decisions to be made in the upcoming years. 

Richard and I have an extra trick with Peanut because we want to find a name that will work well in both English and Spanish.  I am not a fan of "translated names."  To me, your name is your name, so if it is Santiago then I want to call you that and not James.  It is why Richard is called Richard here (okay...Reeeeechar) rather than Ricardo, and why Mamie is just Mamie.  But Mamie is not simple (anywhere, I know), and I certainly deal with my fair share of "Mommy-ay," so we want to find names we like but that also come out of Texas, North Carolina, Illinois, and Colombian mouths fairly well.  No small task. 

So, we are always up for suggestions.  Just remember, we haven't got quite as many chances as Adam did to work this out...

(For some fun you can go to the Social Security Administration website to check out how popular your name is in any given year or the most popular names in particular years.)