What's in a Name?

I always said I would have to have 100 kids so that I could name them all of the fabulous names I had come up with along the way!  Sydney and Eli's names were chosen within the first year Ben and I were dating (Yes, that would mean when we were both 17!) with the exception of tweeking middle names!

Sydney Braylyn was named after my granddad Sidney.  Her middle name was a little more of a challenge.  In fact, she didn't have a middle name until after she was born-- just seconds after I completed a natural delivery, Ben looked at me and said "What's her middle name?"  He got a dirty look and "we'll figure that out later!"  Our favorite name was Olivia, which made her initials "SOB."  We didn't figure that was a nice way to intoduce her to the world!  We ultimately decided on Braylyn- which is a combination of Ben's maternal grandmother's last name (who passed away just a few months before Sydney was born) and my mom's middle name "Lynn." 

Eli was named after his Daddy!  "Benjamin Eugene Brooks, III" never liked his middle name.  In fact, he always tried to hide it with an E.  We knew we wanted to carry on his name, but also didn't want to give our baby a middle name that neither of us liked (odds are.. baby wouldn't have either!)  After years of going back and forth, we decided to leave the initials the same, and change the middle name to Eli, a name we both really liked.  There are no good options for "The Fourth."  And no, "Quad" is not a good option!  :)  After a little research we found we were not the first to do this, but of course, now that I wanted to give examples, I can't find any of them!  So we decided on Benjamin Eli Brooks, and have loved it!  So far, we've only had a few crazy problems with having two Benjamin Brooks' in our house--- like Big Ben being billed for Baby Ben's birth-- crazy insurance company-- obviously a 25 year old man wasn't just born!

Sydney is equally interested in names!  She has recently started naming each of her baby dolls a different name and consistently calls them that.  She has Sister, Baby Dylan, Baby Nilla (we're pretty sure she's named after Nola Bramlett),  Baby Garrett, and most recently, Baby Busy.  We're thinking she might be onto something with Baby Busy-- it would've been a great name for her!  :)