What's in a Name?

When we were pregnant with William, and we found out he was going to be a boy, we knew immediately what his name would be. 

William David Dennison III. 

Dave's dad is the first, and he goes by Bill. Dave, of course, is the 2nd, and he goes by his middle name, Dave. We decided from the start that he was going to be William. Not Will. Not Willy. Not Billy. Not Trey (a common nickname for a 3rd). I was going to be "that mom" that corrected people when they shortened his name, or nicknamed him. For some reason, I really wanted him to be called William. I don't know if I would have ever picked those names, had I randomly chosen his name from a book. But, I LOVE the tradition, and the legacy that it brings. And now, he could not be anyone other than William.

So, when we were pregnant with #2, and we found out that he was going to be a boy, we were pretty sure we know what the name was going to be. But, since we didn't have the whole "name book" experience with #1, we at least gave lip service to looking around at random names. But, within a short time, we knew that his name had to be Hudson.  For those of you who don't know, Hudson is my maiden name.  We were unsure of a middle name. We knew it would be a family name, and we were deciding between James (Dave's paternal grandfather) and Bentley (my maternal grandfather). It wasn't until he was born, and we had the paperwork in front of us to sign for the birth certificate that we finally picked his full name.

Hudson Bentley Dennison.

We loved the sound of both James and Bentley as middle names. Bentley was a little more unusual, and since William had all Dennison names, we decided to go with my family for this baby.  I absolutely love his name. 

Here we are at #3. We never really discussed boy names when we found out we were pregnant. We had pretty much exhausted the boy family names that we LOVED, particularly first names. For various reasons, there really weren't any more "family" names that we wanted to use for a first name for a boy. Of course, there are plenty of very good boy names in both of our families, but we just never felt great about any of them. We did decide, however, that we wanted to use James as a middle name.

Dave was fairly indifferent, but I have a self-imposed requirement that this baby has to have a family name. I just couldn't name him some random name and in 15 years he asks me where his name came from. I'd have to say: "from a book", when his brother's have such strong family heritage behind their names. So, the hunt was on to find a name that we loved and went well with James. Some suggested busting out the family tree on all 4 sides, but I just felt like going back more than 2 or 3 generations is sort of pointless. I mean, if we have absolutely no idea who this man was or what his character was like, why would I name my child after him?

I finally resorted to an online baby search, when I ran across the name Crew. No, it's not a family name. No, it's not common. But, my brother rowed Crew in high school when we lived in England and in college when he was at Harvard. It was a big part of his life. He was pretty good at it. And it just so happened that Dave and I both really liked the name, and it sounds good with James. As it stands now, our baby boy #3 will be

Crew James Dennison

Could we change our minds? Sure. Will we? Doubtful. Now that we both like the name, we've pretty much put a halt on the discussion. So, unless something strikes us in our sleep, or we get a really fantastic idea, this will be it. To somewhat seal the deal, I found this the other while will perusing one of my favorite children's clothing stores: