What's in a Name?

So, folks have been asking us for months, " Do you have a name yet?". Well it turns out that picking a good name is much harder than we thought it might be! You find yourself thinking about how it sounds, what the names mean, looking at names from your family history etc. Practicing saying the name to make sure you won't get tired of it etc., etc.
But, we finally came to an agreement! And the name is....


Hayden Eric Howell


Ultimately we decided that the meaning of the name (family history wise) was more important than the perfect sounding name. How often do you actually get called by all three names anyway?


So, Haden was my mother's great-grandfather. His full name was James Haden Holt. We changed the spelling to make it easier for him to learn to spell the name phonetically (I know it's the crazy teacher in me).  Some of my great-aunts and uncles still remember him. He lived in the same house that my great-grandaddy Holt (Dewey Alger Holt) lived in and I remember it well. My cousin Johnny now has the house and farms our great-great grandparents land up on Bent Mountain outside of Roanoke. Haden ran the local post office out of this house and you can still see the old wooden mailboxes inside the house. I remember drinking fresh spring water from a ladle in this house as a child when we would visit my great-grandaddy Holt.  They had piped in water from Green's Creek to the house. It was the coldest, freshest tasting water! Great-grandaddy Holt also built a trout house and piped in water from Green's Creek. He would catch trout and keep them for years in the bathtub in his trout house, feeding them right out of his hand!


Eric is a middle name that has been on my Dad's side of family for four generations now. My grandfather'a middle name was Eric as is my Dad's who was named after him. My Dad also used Erica as my name and now Hayden will be the fourth with Eric in the middle name. My grandfather was such a jolly and gentle man. He was such a good caregiver and husband to my grandmother who was crippled by a drunk driver in 1980. He cared for her every whim and never once complained or seemed to resent the cards they were dealt.  He died suddenly my freshmen year in college, so he never met Scott and wasn't alive for our wedding etc.


I hope that Hayden will appreciate his name and know that he is named for men of good moral character who lived in a way that any man could be proud of.


So, what's in our baby's name?...a sprinkling of the mountains of VA, the   foothills of NC, farmers, good fathers, and hard-working, christian men of good character and morals that dearly loved their families.