Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 342 | How to Choose Your Child's Name

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Ep. 342 | How to Choose Your Child's Name · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  You're like the steward. You're like the identity steward of your kid. What's up, guys? Another episode of 5-Minute Fatherhood. Me and Jeremy here. We got a good question from... I'm only reading this off the Facebook page. I don't know if it was Rise, Ris, Risen. We don't know what's going on there, but just let us know what your name is and how to pronounce it, because that'd be fun to know. But speaking of names, you asked a really good question about names. You said, what's in a name? And you asked, I'm about to have my first child, and I'm wondering...
• 0:29
  What you guys have thought about when choosing a name or a middle name? Many people like to honor family members. Has anyone done something different? This is a really, really good question. And I think, yeah, I think on short...
• 0:43
  I think it's really special and low-hanging fruit, for lack of a better term, to lean into the fact that names are exceptionally powerful. And biblically, they're everything. So if we want to stick to the scriptures, names are like identities, and they simply are.
• 1:02
  And so I think leaning into that is really powerful. I think we've had really special things with all of our kids where we've sat in it. We've prayed about it. We've asked the Lord, what does this name mean? What do we want to call them and why and where? And one, there's certain prayers, one, there's certain little dreams and visions, and we're not even crazy charismatic, so I don't know how those came about.
• 1:21
  Uh, but, um, but, but, but these things are really powerful. And, and, you know, even like our last kid, Lucy, you know, you know, me and Alyssa almost have different, a little different reasons for each of those. If that makes sense. Like for me, I 100% was all on Lucy. Cause I kept getting this picture of the Lucy from Narnia and that spirit, that demeanor, that identity, the, the simple obedience and relationship that she had with Aslan. Um, and, and, and Alyssa is not as big of a Narnia fan. So that's not what strikes her.
• 1:48
  But all that to say, names mean something. I think lean into it. I love the idea of the honor and family and legacy as well with past names. I think that's really powerful because it's about story. Names connect to story, and it's a really easy way to...
• 2:03
  continually speak life over your kid, continually speak. What is your parental role, which is to, um, not necessarily give your kid an identity, but kind of, right. I think it's, I think I'm another, and maybe another way to put it is you're like the, you're like the steward. You're like the identity steward of your kid. Um, and I think that's a really powerful way to, with the conduit of names, but Jeremy, what would you say?
• 2:25
  Yeah, I love that. I do think it's a huge opportunity, and for sure, you see that pattern in Scripture all the way back. Abram means exalted father, which is a big reason why we talk about Abram being the model father in the Bible. It's, you know, if you read Hebrew, it actually, that's what you're reading, right?
• 2:43
  when you read his name. And then, of course, Abraham means father of many nations. I mean, there's so many examples, it's almost hard to list them all in the Bible. But I think the only other thing I would add to your question is that, like personally, I also care a lot about how a name sounds. And so for me, as we were...
• 3:03
  choosing names, it was always a balance between meaning and sound. Because I'm very affected by words and I wanted each of my kids to have like a nickname that I liked. So Sydney, Sid, Kelsey is Kels and Elisa is Ellie and Kyra is Kai, you know, like Jackson is Jack. So because I always shorten people's names if they have long names and I always like to...
• 3:29
  enjoy the way that their name sounds. But this is all very personal to the family. So I would say weaving together the meaning that you want to invest in your child's name. And I think middle names are a great place as well.
• 3:46
  If you really want a name that sounds really, really nice to your ear and that you've kind of fallen in love with, but the meaning isn't super deep, then you can always use the middle name to give them more meaning. And that's definitely a little bit, you know, was my philosophy. I always aimed their first name a little bit more at the sound and names I liked and the middle name a little bit more at the meaning.
• 4:11
  And so even when I'm talking to my kids, sometimes I'll use their middle name when I'm thinking about their calling. So I would say that that's one of the cool things about being able to give your kids more than one name. But every family kind of has a little bit different name.
• 4:29
  um, approach to how to think about naming your kids. And, and that's kind of the balance that we struck. Um, but I think, I think it's a really important question and such a enormous privilege to name children, uh, and be able to speak over them something like this, that's going to last a lifetime.