When we learned that our second baby was male, our choice for a first name was easy. We named Clive after Matt's dad. We have long wanted to honor Matt's dad for his role in our lives and for his faithfulness to the Lord. He was Matt's best man in our wedding and I know that there's no one Matt looks up to more than his dad. We love him to pieces - his personality, his strength, his humor, his love for God.I also really like the name Clive because of one of my all time favorite authors - C.S. Lewis. It's one of my life goals to read everything he's written. He is a personal hero to me and I devour his writing.
When it came to selecting a middle name, we had some debate. Matt really liked Phinehas but I wanted Simeon. In the end you see who won the battle. I should think I'd get to choose the middle name after enduring the pain and torture of delivery. :) We chose Simeon for his characteristic of expectation and longing for Jesus the Messiah. [Luke 2:25-33] Plus I like how it sounds together way better than Clive Phinehas - what a mouthful!
I know Clive is not a popular name (his name certainly got varied reactions at the hospital), but I was curious of the stats so I did some online research this afternoon on both Clive and Simeon. Turns out Clive was most popular in 1890's when it ranked a grand 763 in popularity out of 1,000. Woo-hoo! The origin of Clive is Old English and means "cliff-dweller". Manly sounding, eh?
Simeon's origin is Hebrew (think 12 tribes of Israel) and the name was pretty popular back in the 1880's. As a name Simeon made a small comeback though in this century and ranked 834 out of 1,000 most popular names in 2004.
Check out this fun site to see the popularity of names in the past decades. I'm warning you, it's addicting. How popular is your name?
What deliberations do you and your spouse go through in choosing names?
15 comments:
We agonize over names; they do NOT come by us easily! We're both picky and don't want a trendy/faddish name, nor too wierd a name, nor too common a name. And it has to mean something or have some sort of significance. :) With both Luke & Simon, there was really only 1 name that made the cut.
Thanks for this post - so fun to hear the meaning behind Clive's name - though I think it's quite cute and wouldn't mind having a Clive myself. :) I haven't posted much myself, but mean to post my Christmas letter, (which, by the way, did you get this year?) which explains how we came up with Simon Clarence. :)
I'm definitely PICKY. :-) Names must not be in the top 10 most popular, but nothing too exotic or hard to spell, either. They must have significant and/or spiritual meanings, and they have to be more than one syllable. They also can't start with M or have the same vowel sound as our last name, and the first name has to flow together with Muth - easily. I told ya! Really picky! :-) I think you picked a great name - nice that grandpa can be honored!
I didn't get time to comment on your earlier posts, so first off . . . congratulations! Clive is so cute!! Second, I like the name--it's fun because it's not one you hear every day, and how cool that you were able to honor Matt's dad in such a special way. I bet he was tickled pink!
We go through MANY deliberations picking out names. We still have no clue what we will name this next baby. We have an easier time coming up with girl names than boy names, so hopefully it'll be a girl. :) We picked Sam's name because it was one of only 2 boy names that we both liked at the time, and we also loved the meaning --"asked of God." Julia's name we picked mostly because we liked how pretty it was, and somewhat old-fashioned sounding. The meaning--"youthful"--wasn't anything special, but that's OK, we liked the name. :) Her middle name, Anne, means "gracious."
We do have a few ideas we are tossing around for the new baby, but it will probably take us a while to come up with something definite. I will have fun checking out that site you linked to!
It took Vince and I a while to decide on a boy's name. We had a girl's name easily and right from the start, we knew that one. With the boy's name, we went through SO many! Probably a good 10, just within a month or 2 of getting pregnant!
We decided on Elijah's name after some insight from God! WE were looking at doing Caleb, but we went out to dinner one night to celebrate our pregnancy, and I told Vince I didn't like the name Caleb but really liked Elijah. He told me the story of how he was in class one day, and several people were going around and praying for the class members. Well, 2 of the men, prayed separately for Vince, and BOTH of them told them they were getting "Elijah" during the prayer. This was before we knew we were pregnant, and Vince never told me that story! So, it was decided then that if it was a boy, his name would be Elijah. Middle name was easy - Vincent - after Vince as well as his father (Vince is a Jr.) which we were able to honor his dad since he passed away in February.
Ok - I've taken up a lot of space now :-) I love the name you have for your little one. It's unique and such a cute name! Not to mention he's a cutie too!!!!
we're going through the same thing right now! we knew right away for a girl's name, but with a boy it's been harder. we have several we're trying to choose from. noone will probably know the name till he's born only because we won't make up our minds for sure until then!
our friends david and annalisa (phillips) wilson named their son Clive last February and that was the first I'd heard of it. Very unique and after an awesome writer!
I love different and original names, so I think Clive is a great name for your handsome little guy! I'm glad you told the "name story" because I was wondering.
Choosing names for us was actually quite easy. For a boy, Bryan always wanted a "second" (its sort of a family thing). One day at college (my first year, so we were not yet dating) I was filling out some paper work with my full name. Bryan was with me and he was shocked to see my middle name was Gwyn. He had always wanted a daughter named Gwyn...with a y. Y's are important to him for some reason! I had always wished my first name was Gwyn. Gwyn is my mothers maiden name so we gave her the middle name Patricia (Bryan's mother) so she could be named after both her grandmothers! Between the four of us, we only have five different names!
Thanks for sharing the name history. I always think that's interesting. By the by, I agree with you on your "Simeon" choice.
P.S. Karen ranked 8th in the 50's.
oh dear--what a question!? I am PICKY about names--they have to have purpose, not just "ooh, I like that." Silas took a while to grow on me, but Matt LOVES names that are different and we both loved his strong character in the Bible and yet he is not a dominant character. ALl that to say, we are still discussing baby tolosa #3and have it narrowed down to two names--we think, which we don't tell, AND we each favor ONE of them over the other--opposites of course:) We will see.
I loved your post and reading about your name decision. Simeon is a name we have talked about a lot but I cannot bring myself to do one more "S" name since I never intended to do the same letter in the first place:) So, my question is, are you doing all "C's" or did it just end up that way?
Congrats!!! He is so cute and I am happy that he is here and you are both home and healthy!!!
We had a hard time picking out names for our kids. We had a name picked out for Victoria and 1 month before we had her someone in our church named their daughter exactly what we picked out...first and middle...
We picked out both Victoria and Logan's name while we were in the hospital...talk about wait till the last minute. :)
Well, Michael Joseph III was easy for our first little guy. Now, we have to do some research and actually decide on a name for our second son:). We do know that Daniel will be part of the name as it is my dad's middle name.
I would not want anything too trendy or popular - to echo some of the other comments. We think that we have a name for our second little guy but it's not set in cement yet:).
I love the background of Clive's name. I'll bet that Matt's dad is just beaming from ear to ear:). I am praying for you all!
Yeah you have to laugh at this - make sure you know what a name means first not just what you think it means :) I named Sierra after the mountains - the Sierra Nevadas are beautiful, well I thought her name had something to do with the mountains - oh no - it means "sawtooth!" I need to find out the spiritual meaning it has to be better :)!
Just saw that you did indeed have your little one. Hurrah!! Congratulations to you both!!
We should find out the sex of our little one on jan. 14th. We've been going through the name thing too recently. I think that your name choice sounds great and thanks for sharing the meaning behind it.
I love the meaning behind the name. So cute! Congratulations! I can't wait to hear the details (If I know you, you won't disappoint)
being able to agree on a name is our biggest obstacle. having been teachers the field gets narrowed rather quickly. :) we first choose names that we like and then find out what they mean. the meaning can determine if they stay the running.
for this baby i really liked the name "mylie". i liked it b/c it was similar to but different than "kylie"... a precious former student. turns out that hannah montana girl is pretty popular. i'm just glad her concert tour came through detroit or i would have gone ahead and named this girl mylie without a second thought. can you imagine??? everyone would have thought we were groupies. :) nathan and i both said we would have gone with it if this baby was due in 10 years... haha! can you imagine being preggo that long?? yikes!
CONGRATS ALICIA!! What a sweet boy! He's adorable. Is your mom there to take care of you all?? I love it, Clive and Chloe!! He has a rich heritage in his name. Love you. I hope you're resting when you can!!
Post a Comment