Baby Names Part 2

I am still planning to catch up on our weekly happenings posts but I wanted to do a few extra posts too. 

 Part 1 here

We've added two more children to the family so I wanted to post about their names too. 

JULIAN MICHAEL HUNT

As most who read this blog probably already know, Julian was placed with us through foster care when he was 3 years old. We adopted him 6 months later and we did change his name when we adopted him. To people who haven't adopted from foster care, changing a child's name can seem really strange and even mean. I understand, I was the one of the ones judging people for doing this before we ever adopted. BUT now that I have been in this situation I see it so differently. There are many reasons why adoptive parents change their child's name. Some of them are trauma associated with the original name, for safety reasons and to build stronger attachment. We did not take the decision to change Julian's name lightly and the decision to do so was what we felt was best for him. 

On to the name, we wanted something that would be close to Julian's original first name. Not all parents do this but we just felt like it would make sense in our case. The names we considered were Jay, Jarom, and Julian. Pretty quickly we both felt like Julian was the one that fit him best. I have always liked the name and I liked that it was common enough and easy to pronounce but I had never known a person with the name before. Julian comes from the Roman name Julius, and it means "youthful" and also "love's child".  Julian has a sweet and peaceful feel to it, and I feel that it really fits our Julian who is kind and laid back. 

Julian's original middle name was Michael. I felt at the time that it was probably a family name from his birth family, (later I confirmed that it is.) We wanted Julian to retain part of his original name so we kept this name for him. It also happens to be a family name in my family. My grandpa's name was Michael and my brother Bennett has the middle name of Michael after him. Shortly after we got Julian,  I felt prompted to go visit my Grandpa Mike's grave, which we did with the kids. My Grandpa Mike was the grand parent I have the most memories with so I was happy to have a child named after him and my brother. It ended up that Julian got a non-bible name to balance out Adele's name, but he does have bible name for a middle name so he doesn't feel too left out. (Like Adele does. )

MOSES ROY HUNT

Moses was our surprise gender baby and throughout his pregnancy I was so sure he was a girl. We had two amazing girl names picked out (four if you count the middle names), that we had planned to decide between after we saw the baby. We could not agree on any boy names. Leland would suggest some and I would say they were alright, but  I didn't love them, but it was okay because I was sure this baby was a girl. 

One day at the very end of my pregnancy I was cleaning the walls in the stairwell (something one only does when they are nine months pregnant) when I thought about the name Moses and had a strong liking to it. I told Leland about the name and said that it was the only boy name that I even slightly liked. 

Well when Moses was born, lo and behold he was NOT a girl! I had always chosen our kids names in advance because I did not want to be in that high stress situation where I had a nameless baby on my hands, knowing that I would probably just pick the first thing that came to my mind because the clock was ticking and who wants a nameless baby for days or weeks. But in the end it didn't prove too stressful. Leland and I didn't even discuss names until after we had gotten a few hours of sleep, and then, sitting together in bed staring at his perfect little face, in a silent house because a neighbor had taken all the kids, we talked it out. Leland really wanted us to use Roy after his late father. I liked the name Roy but not as a first name. Leland again pushed for Elijah or Peter but neither of those seemed right. I hesitated a little bit on Moses because would it be just way too much Old Testament with us having Esther and Israel already? And what if people called him Moze? Leland liked Moses, and when I looked up what the name meant, the first thing  I read was "to pull out of water". Having just pulled this baby out of the water a few hours earlier, I could not believe that was the meaning. It seemed too perfect, so we took it as a sign and named him Moses Roy. 

Moses is also a tribute to Leland's Dad Roy, who was born and raised in Moses Lake, Washington. Roy is also a tribute to Moses' birth place, which was at our house in the city of Roy. (Many people who hear his name think we named him after the city, and we did not, but it's a nice little tribute anyhow.)

Every time I pick up a baby name book, I look up all my kids names to see if there are any other definitions I haven't read. Recently I found a baby name book at a library sale and it had the definition of Moses listed as "Saviour", which makes sense given that Moses is a shadow of the Savior in the scriptures, but I felt that it applied to my own little Moses in a way too, he having saved me from some of the heartbreak I have experienced this year, and brought so much joy to my life these past 7 months.