How Joshua Got His Name

On Saturday evening Joshua received his baby blessing which made me think, "Maybe I should answer the one million people who have asked me how our baby got his name?"  Yeah, sorry it took me forever to get to this.

What I Wanted

I really wanted to include my grandfather's name in his name.  It is the name of a great man who has done so much for his family and deserves to have his name carried on.  Jerry agreed.  And the middle name of our baby was the first thing we chose.  Ivan.

Jerry, Joshua Ivan, Great Grandpa Ivan

What Jerry Wanted

The Chinese character for our last name looks like the letter J.  This is why Jerry's name is Jerry and not Larry or Gary.  Jerry wanted to carry on this tradition of J names.  I agreed.

This isn't my favorite example of the character, but it's the best that Google Images could get for me.

We procrastinated picking names.  We thought we had all sorts of time and would seriously discuss the matter after graduation.  I, of course, already had a list of favorites ... Joel, Joshua, Jacob, and Jonathan.

I revealed these choices to Jerry while laying in my hospital bed knowing that we would have a baby by the end of the week instead of in eleven weeks.  We weighed the pros and cons, but decided to hold off thinking we would have at least one more day.

The next day our nameless baby was born.  While we wanted to pick a name for him, I was too sick and scared to even really think about it.

What the Baby Wanted

The first night after our little guy was born, Jerry went to visit him.  It was the wee hours of the morning.  He read to him and talked to him.  Jerry decided to see what the baby thought of the name choices.

Jerry:  Do you like Joel?

The baby remained still.

Jerry:  What about Joshua?

 The baby waved his little arms.

Jerry:  How about Jacob?

Nothing

Jerry: Jonathan?

Again, nothing.

To make the process scientific, Jerry went through all the names a second time.  The funny thing is that the results were exactly the same.  And so our little guy chose the name Joshua.

For what it's worth, I think he did a good job.  The meanings of names are very important to me.  Joshua means, "God is Help."  Considering all that we have gone through and the many blessings we've had, I think it is a perfect fit.  

To see more pictures from his blessing day, you can visit our family blog.