Unc said:
Ok, you have a kid named after a pair of jeans?
Actually, he's named after my great-grandfather. I picked the name when I was still a teenager. Originally, I had intended to name my son Levi Wallace, after my grandfather and great-grandfather. Later, I dropped the Wallace and was going to name him Austen Levi. (The Austen came from Austen Heller of
The Fountainhead, not Jane.)
When the event actually arrived and Jan was pregnant the first time, she didn't want me to have all the fun of naming the baby if it was a boy. She wanted a name from her family. Unfortunately, her ancestors had names like Alton and Doy. We tossed a lot of names around, and decided that if it was boy, we'd name it Levi Brannon.
Annalyssa's name was also a compromise. Jan came up with Anna, and I came up with Alyssa. We just smooshed them together, and decided that if it was a girl, she could have the middle name Brannon, too.
When Jan became pregnant the second time, I was in favor of going back to Austen Levi since we had already used Brannon in Anna's name, but Jan wanted to stay with the original plan. We never got around to picking out another girl's name, because we planned on having a boy.
Do women take their husbands surname? Whats optional.. whats required ... whats traditional ... what has been ingrained after a few centuries of judeo-chrsitian, shinto, buddhist overlap?
