Harrison Eickman Brehm. What’s in a name?
It was no secret that Adam and I were having quite the challenge this time around with the name game. When I blogged a couple of months back, we had a list of about 10ish boy choices and 7 girl choices. When we went to the hospital last Tuesday, we were pretty much in that same place. I tossed around some names to the nurses and docs, and outside of Dr. Bonebrake suggesting, “Little Bobby”, we were still in a bit of a deadlock. So… what was on the list, you may wonder. Harrison’s delivery pretty much sealed the deal that three kids will complete the Brehm bunch so I will divulge all of our top secret choices that we’ve long kept under lock and key.
The signatures for a little lady were pretty narrowed down.
1. Elle
Elle was on our list with Jonah and we continued to really love it. I think it probably would have won top prize but we will never know… because no, we are not trying for a girl… or anything else:).
2. Emry
Emry has been on our list since Barrett when we were either going to have an Emerson, Emry or Kenzie if it had been thinking pink.
3. Emmy
Emmy was added this time around. We clearly like E names.
4. Livie
We are usually “call them what we name them” people so instead of Olivia, we always liked Livie. But we knew spelling would be an issue.
And the boys… well, we were ALL over the place {In the words of Chris Traeger, I have a list with literally 22 names on it} but if I had to give our final mini-list that we discussed upon our little dude’s delivery, it would probably look like this:
1. Harrison
When I was in college, I worked at a daycamp and met the coolest 7 year old little boy named Harrison. From that day forward, Harrison was on my list and Adam really liked it to. It was second to Barrett when we had B. It was third to Jonah. I was worried people might call him Harry but that is less of an issue now. And Barrett did not like that he had a friend named Harrison. He says he can only know one of each name.
2. Fletcher
A very close second, we liked Fletcher and Fletch.
3. Breck
We were trying to think of something significant to us and we absolutely love Breckenridge. So we came up with Breck. But we didn’t love that we pretty much made it up.
4. Edison
Adam has long loved Edison. But I could not handle the idea of Eddy.
5. Rees
I loved Rees. Adam thought of it more of a girl’s name.
6. Jack
We both liked Jack but it’s pretty high on the popularity charts these days. I still thnk it’s a pretty perfect name. But we didn’t really want another B or J.
7. Tucker
Could not handle what kids might call him. Enough explanation.
We knew from the time we had Jonah and had named both he and Barrett with our middle names, Jonah Brooks and Barrett Thomas, that if we had a third child, the middle name, regardless of gender would be my maiden name. It was something that a few friends in college had and we always really liked the idea of that. So Eickman was set either way.
So, the morning after he was born, Adam and I held mr. Beeb. After a little further discussion, we seriously counted to three and said the name that we each preferred. And we both said Harrison at the same time. I was worried that it would feel like we’d used the left over name but Adam said that we should look at it like it had stood the test of time. And that we should know that Barrett was meant to Barrett and Jonah, Jonah. So, just like that, he became Harrison Eickman Brehm. It’s a pretty BIG name. And that concerned me briefly. But we’ve got to give him something to grow into. And we need him to think big right now.
When we told Barrett, he was not happy at first. In fact, he was not happy Harrison was a boy, either. His reaction to, “Do you know who this is… it’s your baby brother” was, “No. I have a brother, Jonah. This is supposed to be a sister”. And then, when we told him his name so that he could announce it to his grandparents, he also said, “No. I don’t like that name”. But after a few days, he swears he loves it.
And I already adore it. Little Harrison. Or Harry. Or H. Only time will tell what he’ll want to be called. But for now, we’re calling him Harrison. And one week into life, we think it suits him quite well.
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