What's in a name?

I wanted to write and let you all know that we've decided on a name for our little boy!  His official name will be:

Bennett Ryland Stephenson

We chose Bennett because we wanted a name that was similar to Benjamin, my husband's name, but not exactly the same.  I have completely fallen in love with the name Bennett.  It is different, but not completely out there that people look at you funny when you say it.  The first time I saw this name was actually on a wine bottle at my parent's house back in December.  Random much?!  But, something stopped me in my tracks when I saw the name on that bottle.  I remember glancing at it once, then doing a double take and literally standing there and looking at it for about 10 seconds.  Now at this point we did not know if were were having a boy or a girl - but something made me stop and think about that name for a boy.  I was only about 7 weeks pregnant at that point.  The next day Ben and I drove to Charleston and we talked about names on the way there.  I mentioned a few, and Ben didn't like any of them.  The last thing I said during this conversation was "what about Bennett for a boy?" and Ben said "I really like that."

So, from there we had the name Bennett as a front runner for a boy.   I also thought about girl names because my side of the family all thought we were having a girl.  Welp, they were wrong!  We unexpectedly found out we were going to have a boy at my 16 week ultrasound.  The technician said she was absolutely sure it was a boy...I was shocked and Ben had a perma-grin on his face for days.  I didn't have a clue and had been waiting on that pregnancy dream everyone has about their baby that shows whether you will have a girl or a boy - I never had one!  I had scary dreams...but those have stopped thank goodness!  So, anyways, then came the flood of thoughts on "what are we going to name this little boy?"  It is STRESSFUL to name a baby.  You know this name will be with them for the rest of their life, and that is nothing to be careless about.  I was glad we had already started really thinking hard about it before we found out.

So, we tossed a few other names in the mix and never really liked any of them as much as Bennett.  Bennett just feels "right".  I swear some people really mess up when they name their kids.  I'm on a pregnancy board and some of them I've seen are SO ridiculous!  Raider was one I was like "what?? like Raiders of the Lost Ark or the Oakland Raiders?" and another one was Xalen...REALLY people!  And the one that takes the cake was Malice...yes you saw correctly - MALICE!  Malice = hostile and mean...Haha!  Some of them just make me laugh!!  People are crazy.  Of course someone may think Bennett is absolutely crazy too so whatev!  To each his own.

Also, if you were wondering what the meaning of Bennett is, it means "Little Blessed One" - how perfect is that?  Makes me smile :)

Now about his middle name...Ryland is not a family name and came out of us just liking how it sounded with Bennett.  I saw it on a name list for boys....it was #482 in popularity.  I have always liked the name Riley for a girl, and this is similar but sounds a lot more masculine.  You also have to think about initials when naming a baby...you can't name a baby something and then have his initials spell out something absolutely ridiculous like BUS.  Even the first two initials can be made fun of.  Kids are harsh these days and will make fun of anything they can!  So, the J names were out too.  No one will call my kid BJ.  Forget that!  Haaaaaha.  He is already a BS with his first and last name for crying out loud...seriously, it's mind-boggling trying to come up with the perfect name AND perfect initials. 

So, there you have it...BRS it is.  We love it, and hope you all do too.

I will have another post soon about just how many instances of Bennett I've seen lately - it's pretty crazy.  But, that's for another day!

Love to all!

KJS