What's In A Name?

 After Alan and I got married and started having children, we discovered that it's not easy to find names for our babies that we both loved. For our first four children, we didn't even know what the sex would be so we had to choose a name for each sex just in case.

 Many people give their children names of ancestors, but I guess we didn't think of that - I just don't recall what our thinking process was back then. When Ryan was on the way, we decided that we would give each of our sons a middle name of a righteous man in the scriptures. We thought that this might incentivize them to be an upstanding individual like these scripture heroes were.

We liked the name of Ryan, so we knew what the first name would be...but what should the middle name be? We felt that Matthew went well with it so we named him Ryan Matthew Stott. Matthew was one of the twelve apostles that Christ chose to serve with him when He first started his ministry, so we felt comfortable giving Ryan that middle name.

When Eric was born, we decided to go with Michael as a middle name for him. In the scriptures, Michael helped Jehovah create the earth whereon the spirit sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father would dwell. Michael was the first of God's sons to be placed on the earth and he was known as Adam while living here. I guess we could have given Eric the middle name of Adam, but we went with Michael. Those two names, Eric & Michael, just felt right together.

Jared, our third son, has the middle name of Benjamin. It just seemed to go well with his first name. Benjamin was the name of a King in the book of Mosiah in the Book of Mormon. He was a very righteous King who served and taught his people in righteousness. Jared and Catherine are expecting a boy and are considering naming him Benjamin. That makes me happy. Jared's first name is also a name found in the Book of Mormon. He and his family came to the Promised Land (America) long before Lehi's family did. He was another righteous man that I'm happy Jared could be named after. 

Cheryl, our only daughter, doesn't have a middle name. We didn't give her a middle name because I didn't have one either. I wish I could turn back the clock, however, and give her the middle name of Lois, which is my mother's name and it is also a woman's name from the scriptures. She is mentioned in the book of Timothy. Evidently, she is a righteous woman, Timothy's grandmother, who converted to Christ's church. Oh how I wish Cheryl bore that name!

Our last son, Kyle, has the middle name of Andrew. Andrew is the name of another of Christ's original twelve apostles. He is the brother of Simon Peter. He is the first apostle that Jesus called and the first apostle who claimed that Jesus was the Christ. 

There are many people in the scriptures that I look up to - male and female. There are many other names we could have chosen for our kids, but these names seem to fit them perfectly and they seem happy with their names.

I'm not entirely sure that our sons remember that their middle names were chosen from righteous men in the scriptures. I hope they remember that. I may have to remind them of that some day.