I’m six months pregnant with my first child and couldn’t be more excited. At this point it’s just starting to sink in what an incredible change we are about to encounter. It’s daunting to think that my husband John and I will be indelibly linked forever through this little genetic blending of the two of us. And what an awesome responsibility we have to raise and nurture this child. It might seem silly, but part of it begins with the naming of the baby – the fear of giving it a name that will cause them to be mercilessly teased, result in a horribly annoying nick-name, or that would influence their personality, earning potential, love life, self-esteem.

From the very beginning of this pregnancy John and I have been thinking of names. It started off very silly at first – John tried to think of all of the words/acronyms that the initials could spell – like PIS, SIS, DIS, ASS…you get the idea. We’d spend nights laying on the couch throwing random, crazy names at one another. Over the Christmas holidays the moms (mine and his) and my sister got in on the action. Mom would look names up while she was at work, taking suggestions from friends and co-workers, and would bring home lists for us to look over. His mom became enamored with the name Miles Austin – which isn’t a bad name at all. And although a fan, I’m not sure I want to name the baby after a Dallas Cowboys player.

When we finally started to get serious about finding names, we started to look at family names. We wanted to honor both our child and our families with the names of loved ones. It was important to us that the name carried a shared history of where we come from and what our family represents. We wanted to imbue the baby with the characteristics that we admired in those that came before. We made lists of names that we liked, looked at family trees, and names that were common in both families.

In the last couple of months I have become determined that our child be named after my father-in-law. He is a man that I respect and admire a tremendous amount, from the way that he loves and takes care of his family, to the hardships that he had to face and overcome, to his outlook on the world – I would be so incredibly proud for my child to carry his name.

We think we now have a few picked out - both male and female (we’re not finding out gender til day of!). I’m curious to see if we’ll have a hard time deciding when the time comes, or if we’ll look at the baby and know right away what the name should be. I’m excited to see the baby’s face, to hold it in my arms and kiss its little head, and to call it by its name and know that it is right and perfect.