Show and Tell Tuesday: What's in a Name?

Today I'm linking up with Andrea to share stories about how we named our kiddos.

First up is me!  My name is Heather Lindsay Hartman (married name Forcey).  I was a child of the 70's (1975), and my parents loved the name Heather.  I like it, but so did thousands of other parents back then!  I was ALWAYS Heather H. in school because I was never the only Heather.  My middle name of Lindsay was my maternal grandmother's maiden name.  I only know of one other Heather in my life right now and it is a mom at school.  I'm not usually confused for other people anymore!  Other names my parents tossed around for me were Victoria, Wendy and Dagmar!  Seriously!

*As a side note, my sister's name is Tiffany, and I always thought the names Heather and Tiffany went really well together growing up!

*Second side note, my college roommate was also named Heather.  I'm short, but she was even shorter.  She got the nickname Little Heather, and I got Big Heather.  Great.  Not!   Luckily, that particular nickname didn't stick!

Fast forward to 2004 when I was pregnant with my first kiddo.  We chose not to find out the gender on either of our boys.  I loved being surprised both times.  And both times the girl name would have been Hannah Lindsay Rose.  Hannah because I have liked that name forever (since even before getting married), Lindsay after me, and Rose after my mom.

Funny story, my mom isn't named Rose!  Her name is Sharon Mabel, but she hates her middle name and always insists that her name is Sharon Rose.  She's been saying that for so long that I think of her as Sharon Rose now!  And that's where the Rose part would come in.  Plus, Rose fit another qualification of our naming process.  My rule was that the middle name had to represent family.  Eric's rule was the middle name had to be a saint name.  Catholic and all!  Rose fulfilled both of these requirements.

But we didn't have a girl!  We had two boys:  Evan David and Hudson Hartman.

I was about three months along with my first and panicking that I'd give birth any day!  Oh those hormones!  I made Eric sit with me until we settled on a boy name.  (Remember, we'd already had a girl name from day one!)  I just started flipping through the baby name book and when we found Evan, we liked it.  Evan's middle name is David after Eric's father and it is a saint name.  Done and done.  Evan David was born in October of 2004.

We waited until Evan was two before trying for our second baby.  Once again, Hannah Lindsay Rose would have been the girl name, but coming up with a name for a boy was trickier this time around...or at least I made it trickier!  If #2 had been a girl named Hannah, I would have a kiddo with an "H" name to go with Heather, just like Eric and Evan and they shared an "E."  Corny, I know.  We didn't plan it like that, but it just worked out that way.  I WANTED an "H" name to go with my name!  The only problem was that I didn't particularly like any boy names that started with an H.  I was talking about this fact one day in the teacher lounge at school.  The next day, the kindergarten teacher at the time told me she thought of a name: Hudson.  And I loved it!

We settled on Hudson Hartman.  Since #1's middle name was after Eric's side of the family, I wanted #2's middle name to be after my side of the family.  (Again, Hannah Lindsay Rose would have fit all that!).  I looked it up, and my maiden name of Hartman happened to be an obscure Catholic saint.  Check and check.  Family connection and saint name AND an "H" name for the neurotic mother!

When the doctor said, "It's a boy!" we had our Hudson Hartman in September of 2007.  I LOVE his name so much.  Before having Hudson, I had never even heard of the name.  Now, of course, I hear it everywhere!  I like to think I was a trend setter!  Just kidding!  Sort of!

There you have it.  Naming Evan David was pretty easy.  Naming Hudson Hartman was a bit trickier.  And we are not going to have a Hannah Lindsay Rose.  Our family is perfectly complete.