What's to a Name?

What's to a name you ask?  Well to me A LOT!  Evan and I spent 10 months trying to figure out a name that could suit a baby and an old man.  A name that meets the baby's personality.  And to me, a name that hasn't been used a bazillion times already!

When Evan and I started exploring names I would Google each name to understand the meaning, origin, and to see how many "George" Joneses there were.  I didn't want my child to have to put a #2 behind his name in the workforce like I do at my company.  It just isn't cool!  Also, I wanted to know who the other people were that had the same name.  I swear 90% of my searches resulted in some other person with the same name being a prostitute or drug dealer.  We also were asked quite a few times if his name would begin with an "E".  Edgar and Ernie just weren't our style :) The name situation was getting hard.  

Finally I threw out the name - Briggs.  When I Googled Briggs Jones the majority of results came back as a law firm.  I was fine with that!  Also, Briggs reminded me of SDSU (Briggs & Stratton came from SDSU and he was a distinguished alum), agriculture as my family used to raise a seed variety called Briggs, and was a very strong sounding name.  Bonus: We love last names for first names, and Briggs is more common as a last name.  We were pretty excited that we had nailed down a name; however, we were worried that he may come out looking kind of whimpy.  If that was the case Briggs may not work, so we had a backup name that was kind of weak - Ari.  We kept that in our back pocket just in case, but obviously it wasn't needed! :).  

Now how did we get Henry?  

This story totally aligns with an Emily story.  We knew we were going with Briggs and had tried several middle names such as Wesley (a family name on the Jones side), but all the names just were jiving.  So one day this summer I was shopping for sunglasses at Herbergers and as I was checking out the older cashier lady asked me about my pregnancy.  Side note: Evan and I agreed not to tell the name to anyone; however, I figured I would never see this lady again so I told her his name would be Briggs Jones but we had not decided on a middle name.  The lady paused while sacking up my sunglasses, looked me in the eye and the middle name should be Henry.  Briggs Henry Jones.  I repeated the full name several times and realized Briggs Henry Jones sounded like a future CEO or lawyer.  Perfect!!

I came home and told Evan my new discovery of Henry.  He wasn't completely sold right away, so I gave him the job of deciding the middle name.  At the end of the process, Evan decided on Briggs Henry Jones. 

So that's how Briggs's got his name!  It isn't a family name. It isn't a common name.  But it is this little nugget's name - a perfect name for a perfect baby :)

The name's Briggs...
Briggs Henry Jones.