What's in a name

Naming a child is an exciting and scary task. We chose the names of our kids in different ways. Abigail was chosen very early on in the pregnancy (before we knew she was a girl) because it was one of the first names that we liked. I said to Colin, "Do you like 'Abigail'?" He said he did and that was that. We never discussed girl names again. Henry was a joke really. Before having our ultrasound Colin was SURE we were having another girl. He wouldn't discuss boy names so I said, "Fine, let's name him Henry." I started calling him Henry and it stuck. The day of the ultrasound we bought our mini-van. As we were waiting for the paperwork, Colin said "I'm not sure I like the name Henry." I told him too bad. We both love the name now. And no, he's not named after a grandpa or anyone else we know for that matter. Johanna was the hardest name for us to come up with. Colin really like Katherine, I really liked Mathilda. Neither of us liked the other name enough to commit. Abigail has a Josie in her class that is really named Johanna. When Abigail said that one day I asked Colin if he liked it...that was that.

The middle names of our kids all are family names and important to us. Abigail's middle name is MacKena. Mac was Colin's maternal grandpa and Ken was my maternal grandpa...thus the spelling and capitalization also. Henry is Henry Andrew, named after Colin's dad, Andy. Johanna is Johanna Mathilda. Mathilda is my grandma's name. All the names are special to us and we love honoring family members with them.

Johanna will be baptized on Sunday and our Pastor talks about the meaning of the baby's name. The meanings are also important to us...
Abigail: Father's joy, or joy of the Father
Henry: Ruler of the home
Johanna: God is gracious

I was thinking about names today because the Social Security Administration released their top names of 2008. Where do my kids' names rate?

Abigail was the 8th most popular girl's name last year.
Henry was the 78th most popular boy's name last year.
Johanna was the 448th most popular girl's name last year.

One more thing...when we chose Johanna we NEVER guessed how many people would mispronounce her name. Wow. Mispronounced in our book at least. We have chosen to go by the really americanized version...Jo-hanna. The first "a" in "hanna" sounding like the a in cat. That doesn't bother me much because the English sounding version is very pretty too. It's amazing though how many people drop the "h" and call her Jo-anna. Amazing really. Why would people just assume that we drop the h? And why would we name her Johanna then as opposed to Joanna? Just a little rant...is it bad that I'm freaking that my Pastor will pronounce it wrong on Sunday? :)