Anyone wondering how on earth Grey turned into Evander? I sure would be if I were you! Well...after yet another conversation with Ben in which he recounted the reasons he wasn't 100% thrilled with the name Grey (1. It's more of a nickname than a full name. 2. It's meaning isn't particularly meaningful.) I thought maybe I'd acquaint myself with some other options. After sticking my nose into some baby names websites for awhile I came across the name Evander and immediately felt attached to it. Not really that surprising when you consider that we were considering the names Evelyn, Evany, and Evangeline (just me...Ben hates that one) for a girl before we knew we were having a boy. Also, I think Evander is reminiscent of the names Oliver and Xavier which I'm fond of. I was really excited to run it by Ben because I was pretty confident he was going to like it too. Especially since it reminds me of the names Vance (which we both think is a great name that we might have considered if it wasn't Aunt Janna's married name) and Vaughn (another name that Ben is attached to but it belongs to both his uncle and his cousin already...Ben used to tease me and say he wanted to name his son Otto Vaughn Otto!) Evander also carries a solid meaning: good man or strong man, and some decent history too. In Roman mythology Evander was a Grecian hero, deified after his death, who brought the Greek pantheon, laws, and alphabet to Italy. He was said to have wisdom beyond that of all the Arcadians. So I wasn't too surprised when Ben jumped on the Evander bandwagon. We spent a couple of weeks trying it on for size and the rest is history.
Now the only question is...what should we call him?!
Nicknames I'm currently using include: Mister, Boss (because he is), Moose (because he's enormous), Pteradactyl (because he sounds like one when he gets mad), and Grey (we're all using this one accidentally from time to time!)
Nicknames associated with the name Evander include: Van, Vander, Andy, Vandy, and Evan. We're leaning towards Van at the moment, but I'm not completely sold on it. Ben has also suggested just plain E. Sofie's pronounciation, "Vanner" makes me grin :)
I like Evan. And you know, when I was talking to my mom about this name I actually thought it was one of the options you used to like, along with Xavier and Oliver. Are you sure you never knew about it before?
ReplyDeleteI've wanted to ask you where Evander came from... or what you were calling him... but I figured a million people already had, so I didn't want to add to the list!!!
ReplyDeleteBrynn was going to be Evan... I love it!! :)
We thought Brynn's nickname was going to be Beemer because her initials are BMW, but now she's Bean or Brynn-e.
I like Van for a nickname.
ReplyDeleteOh and when are you gonna have the labor story up? I am so anxious to hear about your experience.
I'm sort of obsessed with names and name origins and the like, but I try to keep my opinions to myself. I think for Grey, I would have gone with something like Graham or Gregory, to eventually arrive at the nickname Grey, but I didn't want to be all telling someone else what to do :) It's not totally intuitive, but I think it could work. I love nicknames, but the thing about them is that they are kind of hard to plan.
ReplyDeleteI actually like just plain "E." My grandmother was Elaine who went mostly be "E." Also, my aunt is Evangeline, who goes by Vangie. A lot of people think that is awful, but I think it's cute. That said, Evan, Andy, etc., are all cute. I think Andy, Van, or Vandy are all more intuitive nicknames for Evander than "Evan," though, because I am assuming you say "EEE-vander" as opposed to "Eh-vander." Which is why E also works.
Very interesting. I agree with Kate, though, it's really hard to plan a nickname. In our house, the sibling has had a lot to do with it. I NEVER wanted to call Lillian Sissy, but we do because Clayton started saying that WAY before he could say Lillie or Lillian. We've also used LuLu a lot and a bunch of others I can't even remember.
ReplyDeleteAnd having a 2 year old around when you start talking to the new baby is always interesting. Lillian called Clayton Caken when he came home and that stuck. He called himself Cay-Cakes (which also means pancakes, and I thought that was cute. We've shortend them both to Cay-Cay a lot. Or Claytie. I'm sure eventually he'll just be Clay, which I know is YOUR favorite, Sam, but for now, it's this weird, morphing thing.
As for Evander, I immediately thought Vandy - because that is the name of the guy at Boulder Toyota that we buy all our cars from - he's a great guy! We already have an Andy and an Evan (Ev?), but neither are anywhere near you guys, so that probably doesn't matter so much. I kind of like E, but Andy says no way. Andy likes Vanner. :)
That is too funny you call Evander Grey. Ethan was going to be Nathan until the day he was born. We slipped up a few times after we brought him home but Jason's grandmother still calls him Nathan to this day.
ReplyDeleteI like Van, or E. I mean, if it's going to be a nickname, might as well keep it to one syllable. Also, I seem to have forgotten how to spell syllable.
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