What's in a name?

In addition to the usual "How are you feeling?" or "How far along are you?" the question of late has been "What is his name?"and "When can we stop calling him 'peanut?'" Sorry darling readers we don't have a straight answer on that one. I come from a family that its tradition to name children after another member of the family as an honor to the elderly. My mom's side (the Greeks) is chalk full of repeats - My mom Nikki is named after her dad, my Papou Nicholas, and there are three Lillians named after my Yiayia Lillian. I am named after my Papou's sister Madeline, who passed before I was born. And then my brother Bobby is named after my dad and grandpa Robert. You get the point. Then on Derek's side the "tradition" is similar. His dad Tom is named after Grandpa Thomas. Additionally, there's a tradition to have a nickname with initials. Derek John (D.J.), Clinton West (C-dub),Adam Jordan (AJ), Grant Thomas (GT).. you get the picture. So needless to say it's very important to have a name with "meaning" to our families.

But more importantly, I want our son to have a beautiful, strong, and professional name. Peanut can't be out there conquering the world with a name like... well... peanut. I would love his name to be Biblical or have a Christian meaning. But it seems we're having a really hard time with it. So we're down to about two names and seriously it's tough because we each like different names! We're not sure but at this point (and who knows it may still change) it's down to: Blake Robert and Cole Thomas.

Blake in Old English means "black" or "dark" but can also mean "blac" meaning "brightness or shining." Hmm... that's an oxymoron to me but ok. Robert is Germanic and it's a family name, clearly honoring my grandpa, dad, and brother. Robert means  "bright fame" (yes fame not flame!). While Cole has two meanings. One being "dark" and the other as a derivative of Nicholas meaning "victorious." Thomas is also a family name, honoring Derek's dad and grandpa. It means "twin." Well like I said I wanted the names to have meaning, but clearly a literal definition isn't going to happen if we go with one of these. But hey, atleast we had good intentions. Because as it is if we go with either our son's name could mean "dark." Eeks. (Well he will be the light of my life! Just accept that I am cheesy!)
 
To be honest we were deciding whether or not to keep it all secret but it's honestly too hard not to tell the people you love and get feedback. And so far we're happy because no one has had a negative or adverse reaction to either. Or maybe people are just nice about it. We may just decide to keep driving ourselves and family crazy and wait until he's here to see what he really should be named. Or we'll just pray for divine intervention since HE already knows his name!