The story behind the name

Today, for the first time ever, I am participating in "Show Us Your Life" over at Kelly's Korner. If any of my regular readers aren't already following Kelly's blog, you should be. She is addictively cute and the mother of an equally cute miracle baby. This week she has asked her bajillions of readers to share their baby names and the stories behind them, and I am complying.

This is Benjamin Eager Wiginton.

Since the hubby and I both have Old Testament names (Daniel and Micah, for those of you who don't know us), we always thought it would be fun to give our kids good ol' OT names. Daniel lobbied forever for Abraham, and while I think Abraham is a really great name, I vetoed it for us. Our last name is Wiginton. Abraham Wiginton? That is a pretty heavy-duty name for any kid -- but especially for a kid who already has the disadvantage of inheriting all of Daniel's and my weirdness. So I insisted on a more "normal-sounding" Old Testament name.

We settled on Benjamin. We actually settled on Benjamin long before our Benjamin existed. In fact, we had to beg my sister-in-law NOT to use that name for our nephew (who was born nine months before Ben). Yes, we fought for the name of our not-even-conceived child. Lame, I know, but the options for acceptable OT names are slim.

Ben's middle name took longer to nail down... sort of. We liked the idea of using a family name that was significant to us, and not long after learning I was pregnant, we picked Eager as our boy middle name. Daniel's paternal grandmother's maiden name was Eager. She had bunches of siblings (Daniel's great-aunts and uncles), most of whom were born and raised on a farm that Daniel's brother now owns. That farm and those Eagers were important to Daniel, and there are no relatives left with the Eager last name. Giving our baby the name Eager felt like the perfect tribute to a special family.

The problem with Eager was that no one seemed to like it except us. We told a few people Ben's full name before he was born, but they usually looked at us like we were crazy. Then we would have to repeat the middle name ("Yes, Eager. Yes, like the adjective."), and they would still look at us like we were crazy. I waffled for a while (after a co-worker told me that kids would make fun of him), but I finally just started pretending that we hadn't decided on a middle name yet and assumed people would be less vocal about their opinions of Ben's name after he was actually born.

As it turns out, Eager is the perfect middle name for Ben, which makes his whole name awesomely Old Testament. He was so eager to be born that he arrived a full month early. And these days, he is eager for everything. Eager to be mobile. Eager to be fed. Very, very eager to be held and loved. Sometimes I wish we had named him Benjamin Mellow. But as exhausting as that boy can be, I am learning to be thankful that God gave him such an intense personality. I am learning to pray that my Benjamin Eager will grow up to be a man who is eager to live fully. Eager to be fed spiritually. Eager to love people and hold fast to his God.