His Name

Jack, a variation of John, means God is gracious.

p.s. I painted that whale and also another one for Eliot's room!  This is the second water color I've done (since childhood, I mean) and I'm hoping I can get back to making art.

Christopher and I had agreed on our baby boy's name a while ago, but we wanted to wait to announce it when we knew for sure that it was final.  We also hoped to agree on a middle name so we could present his full name, but we're letting that simmer.

Boy names are so easy to come up with for me.  I thought of Jack, Ezra, Harper, Levi (which is also a friend's son's name), Quentin, Emerson, Bransen....  The list goes on and on forever.  So many good names that sound great but aren't too quirky.

I was hesitant to settle on Jack at first.  If you combine all of the Jacks and Jacksons (along with the various spellings of Jackson), Jack is rather high on the popularity list.  However, since Chris spent a year researching and writing his 120-page Master's thesis on Jack Kerouac, I think we have some extra leverage to use his name.  (As a side note, we are nottt naming our son AFTER Kerouac.  While he was an amazing writer and thinker, I certainly hope that my son will not follow in Kerouac's footsteps.  He lived a destructive lifestyle and died at 47 of internal bleeding due to alcoholism).

When we were thinking of names for Eliot, we also considered Jack.  It was down to those two.  Sometimes I would let out a sigh and hope for the chance to use Jack again, but Eliot is totally an Eliot.  It just felt right.  So when we found out we were having a baby boy again, I knew he'd be a Jack.  The more names we tossed around, the more we came back to Jack.  And when we had said it so frequently that Eliot started saying "Baby Jack" when playing cars on my tummy, well, we knew it was pretty much final.

As for a middle name, I have suggested Jack Harper, but Chris prefers to use a family name, which is fine and I understand.  With Eliot, his middle name was easy.  Thomas is Chris's grandmother's maiden name and also went along great with Eliot--it's the shared "T" sound.  With Jack, it hasn't been so easy.  There aren't any family names we really like that go along.  We have an idea, but I'll probably just wait until Jack is born to announce it.  I mean, I'm sure no one cares about the middle name as much as his first name.

So, if I refer to Jack from now on, you'll know who I'm talking about.