The Name Game

The biggest thing the Wifey and I did that pissed off a lot of people was to not find out the gender. Well, pissed off is a pretty strong word, I would say it frustrated a lot of people. The second most frustrating thing was to not share the names for either scenario.

I've always felt that names should have some sort of significance besides, "it sounds pretty." Or to randomly pick a name off a website or take a very nice name and butchering it with added and random letters. But to each their own. The reason I got my name was because the original name wasn't liked by the nurses. My mom was a huge Michael Jackson fan and also a Charlie Daniels fan  (she loved country). Since English was her second language, she found no issue with the name Jack Daniels. The nurses felt that name would destine me to become an alcoholic. She then decided Jackson would suffice. Anyways, here are the names:

Penny Lea.

Penny is the Wifey's grandmother's nickname growing up. Based on the story told by the Wifey's mom, as remembered by me, even though I wasn't paying attention, was that the grandmother was a waitress and she used to carry pockets full of change. The local neighborhood children would run up to her and she would throw pennies at them to keep them away from her or something like that. We've also felt Penny was an appropriate name because one of our favorite artists, Rhett Miller, is the lead singer of one of my favorite bands, Old 97's. In one of their songs, 'Rollerskate Skinny' (which is named after a line from J.D. Salinger's 'Catcher in the Rye, a favorite of every boy in the world) Rhett sings, "you're pretty as a penny..." So Penny was the chosen name

The middle name, Lea (pronounced lee), is actually the middle name of the Wifey's best friend. It was the best way for us to show her how important she has been in our lives.

Since we plan on no longer gracing the planet with another adorable baby, we found okay to share our choice for a boy name.

Rhett Allen.

It was hard to come up with a boy name with considerable significance. If I named our next boy after one of my best friends, it would have a horrible nickname because I still refer to my most of my friends by their college nicknames. Dogballs or Nuttin' Bitch probably wouldn't get them a decent job. Or names like Hutch or Fowler or Mr. Smith would be kind of weird as first name. So we felt the name Rhett would be the most appropriate. The middle name pays tribute to the Wifey's best friend but I was partial to having Lea as the middle name - but the Wifey felt that would be too feminine of a name. Plus Rhett Lea sounds delightfully white trash.

But those are the names and I think we did good. Our newest daughter really is pretty as a penny.