Clarification

My child is NOT named after a car. I just want to clear that up. Because when Blaine clicked on an article about, and I quote, "the most despised baby names" we were a little horrified to see that Bentley was near the top of that list.

I have a thing about names. I like awesome ones. I take a great deal of deliberation when choosing them. I don't want a common name. Ivy's name was on the top 1000 (#299) when we named her and that was pushing it. But I loved it so much that I made an exception.

When I named Bentley it wasn't even in the top 1000 baby names. I practically invented using the name. Bentley was born in 2007, and the social security rating for his name in 2007 was #995 (it wasn't on the list for any year prior, ever.). But apparently there is some famous teenage mom (from one of those crazy shows that advocate teen pregnancy) that named her child Bentley and now, what do you know, for 2010 Bentley ranked #101 on the list of baby boy names. What a sham. And on top of being a now extremely popular name, people apparently hate it, because they assume people are using it because of the classy Bentley car. I kind of want to pull my hair out.

Let me tell you a brief history of my childrens names, lest you think I am a Bentley driving Gwenyth Paltrow fan whose favorite plant is Ivy (can you see the steam coming out of my ears?).

Gwen. Gwen is named after Blaines Grandma. Blaine's Grandma is absolutely the most Christlike person on the planet today. I am sure of it. So selfless, kind, caring, sweet. The salt of the Earth. If asked who I most wanted to be like on the planet, it would most certainly be Grandma Gwen. Gwen's name was 100% going to be Adilyn. Adilyn Paige. Up until the day she was born, when it just didn't feel right. And thank goodness for that. Little Adi would have been lost in a sea of Madi's, Abby's and Adi's. Dodged that bullet.

Bentley. My Grandma's maiden name was Bentley. It seemed perfect. We loved the name Ben but didn't want to use the common name of Benjamin. So one day I had an epiphany (I was in the HEB parking lot with Ralphie) to use my Grandma's maiden name. She was also a very sweet, kind, give you the shirt off her back, kind of Grandma. And bonus! We could stick with the using of the family name thing, which we never set out to do, but hey! Why not!

Ivy Jane. Now this was a hard one. We had used family names twice, but was that going to be our thing? I didn't want to commit to a trend. We stewed and stressed. My desire to name my child something unique reached an all time high. I really really loved the name Scout. I thought it would be darling for a little girl. I could not sell Scout on Blaine to save my life (much the same as Charlie with Bentley). One day on the phone I was teasing my dad, Ivan (goes by Don), that I was going to name the new baby after him and call her "Ivy". It was completely a joke. But then...I really liked it. In the hospital we had the names narrowed to Lyla Jane or Ivy Jane. We had penciled in Lyla on the certificate. Then I told Blaine I was sick of trying to figure it out, and that he was to leave and not come back until he had for sure named our new baby. He came back with tears in his eyes and said her name was Ivy Jane. He really wanted to honor my parents (Ivan and Jan). He new I wasn't the best at showing grattitude, and I really did have amazing parents. He wanted to show them how much we love and admire them by naming our daughter after them (in a round about way).

So SEE. My kid is not named after a car, nor was his name inspired by teenage pregnancy.

Now, if your kids name is popular, that's great. I love popular names too. And if you named your kid after a car, more power to you. I just didn't and I want to clarify so that if you think Bentley is a very uppity thing to name your kid you can realize...I named my Bentley after a humble old lady, who lived in a tiny house in Ogden and had a heart of gold, not a pot of it.

(PS the spacing on this post will not be fixed. I tried. Repeatedly. It's like hard wired in here. Sorry)