O What's In a Name?

For any of us who have ever had to give a child a name, we know it's quite a challenging task.  I know in choosing the names "Dylan" and "Zoe" that David and I gave much thought, anticipation, and time to make sure we had the perfect name.  We started by making a list of all the names we liked and took ample time to learn the meanings, ponder what things would be associated with such a name, etc. 

For example, Dylan is Welsh and it means "son of the sea."  We liked the sound of Dylan and the strong character we felt the name had.  There were various ways one could spell the name and we picked the one we thought was best.  With our son's name, we largely chose it because it was a name we loved.   Dylan's middle name is Evan.  Evan is also a Welsh name and it means "God's grace."  While I love the "meaning" of Evan, we actually chose Evan because it is a family name.  It was my grandfather's middle name and Dylan was born on what would have been his 100th birthday.  So on the day Dylan was born, we thought Evan was the perfect middle name for our first born.

Now Zoe was picked largely for the meaning as well as the fact that we liked it.  Zoe comes from the Greek and it means "life."  Once we knew we liked the name and looked up the meaning, there was never another thought given to any other name.  As with Dylan, there were vaious ways one could spell Zoe, and once again we picked the way that we felt was best.  Zoe's middle name matches nicely to Dylan's middle name, Evan, meaning God's grace as our little girl is named Zoe Grace.  Grace is of Latin origin.  It means "blessing". We felt we had the perfect combination of life and blessing in our choice here.

The inspiration for this blog isn't about my kid's names though, it was about the names that Dylan and Zoe have started giving to their toys which I find quite interesting and intriguing.  I don't want to forget these and I want them to be able to remember some of their first names that they gave to their toys.

So here's a list...

Dylan's names -
Patches is his pillow and the first thing he ever named.
Renoir is his pillow pet which is a puppy.
Rex is his dinosaur from Build a Bear.
Elephant is his zhu zhu pet hamster.
Puppy is his furr real dog.

Zoe's names -
Pink is her dinosaur from Build a Bear who is actually pink in color.
Deet is her pillow pet unicorn's name.
Dino Dan is her zhu zhu pet.

And let's not forget Tilly who is and will be our Elf on the Shelf each Christmas.  They named Tilly together.