If you've been hanging with us from the beginning then you know that we don't really pick names just because we like the way that they sound, or look, or because a family member or friend happens to have that name too. We like to go back pretty far in our Christian heritage and borrow from the ancient Hebrew naming traditions which regard names as a very real part of who a person is and will become. For the ancient Hebrews, "to be called" and "to be" were thought to be synonymous, and a name was held to be one in the same with the person or object itself. An interesting example of this (a NOT interesting example would be the Prayer of Jabez) is how Jews will render G-d's name like so when written, instead of writing it out. Not only is his name holy and not to be used in vain, but it also is Him in a very real way and you would never want him thrown away, discarded, etc.
So anyway, the meaning of a name was hugely important and would become a sort of prophetic vision for the individual's life. This is a cool thing when your name is Jedidiah (friend of God) or Aden (handsome, adorned), but not so cool when you name is Phesse (lame), Heled-Sepho (fat and bald), or Ichabod (my glory has departed [ouch!]).
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So for a little more info about our thoughts on the naming process and for an example of the name/meaning dynamic in action you can check out this old post from right before we decided on Judah's name.
Obviously this isn't our first time on the naming wagon. Before we decided upon Judah's name one of the cool things that God did was lead us to Psalm 112 which talks about the children of the righteous man and we've felt strongly that He wanted us to pull our children's name meanings from that Psalm itself. To check out that whole story and the story of actually deciding on Judah's name, you can go here.
.4 Even in darkness light dawns for the upright,
for the gracious and compassionate and righteous man.
We both loved the imagery that the verse evokes, and how powerful and necessary the idea was of "light dawning from darkness". We were almost dead set on Judah actually being called Donovan because it meant "dark warrior" and then finding a middle name that had something to do with light, but, alas, names are funny things. It wasn't until we "saw" Judah on the ultrasound and knew for sure that he was a boy that we really felt a peace about his name.
And if you went back and read the old posts, or you just have a good memory, you'll know that another name that we loved and were considering if Judah was a girl was the name Layla, which means "night" or "dark beauty" in Arabic. Keight has actually loved the name Layla since before we even met, it's been her name of choice for a girl since high school. I, on the other hand, had some reservations.
