The Name Game

Mike and I really struggled to figure out a name for our 3rd child. It was like having Jacob all over again. Mike and I have such different ideas when it comes to what names sound good. It was so discouraging not being able to agree on a name for Jacob when he was born. I felt so strongly in my heart that he was meant to be Riven Jacob Bates. I loved Riven because it was unique and had a "v" in it like Vessel's name. I liked Jacob as a middle name because its a very Biblical name (just like Vessels middle name, Noah.) and also "normal," so if he ever wanted to fall back on his middle name, he could. I thought it would be nice to give all our kids unique first names, with common middle names (and/or religious/scriptural names.) But so much for that. We thought about using "Eleven" as a name for our third, of course, only if he was born on the eleventh (which he was.) It would've definitely been unique, but I couldn't really hear myself calling him "Eleven." I felt like Eleven would've been the perfect name if we had a girl because we could just call her "Eve" or "Evey," both names that Mike and I really love. I don't want it to sound like I wasn't excited to have another boy, because I was. It's just funny how Mike and I could agree on hundreds of girl names. A little ironic, eh? We also thought about using "November" as a name and calling him "Ember" for short. Ember was a name we considered last time when I was pregnant with Jacob. November is unique and suggests something about when he was born. But I couldn't get Mike totally on board with the idea. He thought "Eleven" or "November" would've been suitable for a middle name only. Mike liked the name "Elias" and when he told me about it, I liked it too. But I didn't want people to call him Eli for short. In the beginning I thought "Eleven Elias Bates" sounded great. Over time I agreed with Mike that Eleven was much better as a middle name. Turns out we never even used Eleven as part of our baby's name anyway. On the top of my list was "Adler" meaning "eagle" in Old German. I also liked the names Hawk, Rain, Riley, Nevata (meaning snowflake), Echo, Navarro, Baxley, Rylan, and Breckin. I couldn't say I was 100% in love with any of those names, however. I was grappling for something, ANYTHING, that Mike would agree on and that I could grow to love. And then while we were in the hospital after the baby was born, Mike was holding him and said, "What about Haven? He looks like a Haven to me." When I was in high school, our band performed a song called "Havendance" that was named after the composer's daughter. Ever since then I have always wanted to use the name Haven for my first born daughter. After the ultrasound confirmed we were having another boy, I thought that ship had sailed, and that I'd never get to use the name Haven. Mike said he was talking to a co-worker and she new a man named Haven. I big, strong cowboy of a man in fact. And then while looking through one of the name books we got from the library, I saw that Haven was listed under the boy section. Perhaps Haven wasn't as feminine as I thought it was. I considered Mike's proposal and it actually sounded perfect to me. As for the middle name, we decided on Elias because of it's scriptural reference. Wow, we actually both felt good about the name! And that's how Haven Elias Bates came to be.