So much goes into a name. Family history, popularity or lack thereof, personal preference and, hopefully, consideration for the little person themselves. This would be a moniker (s)he would always carry. Something (s)he would always be associated with, have to learn how to say and spell and explain. It wasn't something we could take lightly or choose without a lot of thought. And so we did just that. We thought, and thought, and thought... and we also had some ground rules.
RULE #1: It had to look good on a resume. I once had a roommate who was a high school teacher in the Bronx, NY and she would come home with the craziest names on her students papers. Like "ABCD". The name of her seventeen year old pupil whose name was "Ab-si-dee", spelled "Abcd". I'm pretty sure that poor girl's resume is going straight into the shredder with a header like that, because who wouldn't think that was joke? Not to mention the time I volunteered at a care center and met a toddler named Tako (taco). Not okay, people, not okay!
RULE #2: It had to be easy to read, say and spell. When future teachers are doing role call, our child wouldn't have to correct their first name or cringe when it was said aloud. We have a last name that causes enough of that already, the correction not the cringing, and it's not even that hard! People are easily befuddled in general, so a simple first name was only fair.
RULE #3: It couldn't be gender neutral -- although pretty much all names are these days -- or be a last name, per Daddy's request. Tom wanted a name that people would associate as a "boy name". Even if there were girls in the world that had the name, the Boy : Girl ratio of it had to heavily lean toward boy. He also wasn't a fan of last names like Smith, Carson, Carter etc as first names. Which made things even harder, because I liked all of those!
RULE #4: It had to sound cute for a baby / child, attractive for an adolescent / adult, and comforting / wise with the title"Grandpa" in front of it. All stages of life needed to be considered.
There were other nuances of naming such as how unique or classic we wanted it to be, if we wanted family ties or a certain meaning to the name etc. I also really wanted there to be some connection to New York, be it obvious or not, if possible. Mainly, though, we just wanted a good, solid name that we both liked.
One night, shortly after we had established these rules, but had yet to tell anyone we were pregnant let alone knew the gender, I suddenly had a name pop into my head. I think I even heard a "Pop" when it entered. I tried to push it out, because it broke one of the rules, but it kept popping back in. Since rules were made to be broken, I decided I'd let it have a chance.
"Hey, what do you think about Keller?" I asked Tom.
"Keller." He repeated. "Yeah. I really like it."
"You do?!" I said, surprised. "But it's a last name. Rule #3!"
"Yeah... I know." he said. "But I really do like it."
We didn't settle right then, but we kept it on the table. It stayed in the lead as we entertained other "legitimate" first names. Yet over months of name-gaming, once we learned the baby was a boy, we continued to circle back to Keller, until finally we just started referring to him as "Keller", only between us, by the time I was five months pregnant. At this point, we figured we better do some research on the name. We took to Google, Facebook and the Social Security website to see what they could dish out that might dis-sway us.
Ironically, the first things that came up on Google thrilled me. Not one, but TWO ties to NYC! Things that weren't obvious, things that I never knew existed, but that were real New York connections. The first being the Keller Grad School of Management, a branch of DeVry University located in Manhattan. The second, a clothing brand in Brooklyn. Both were a stretch, and neither mattered or were things I'd name a baby after, but a connection with this name and New York existed and that was enough!
Lots of results brought Keller up as a last name, but it was hard to find first names without really digging. We liked that, while it was an obvious last name, it wasn't a common last-turned-first name. And we did find a few first named Keller's such as Keller Chryst, one of the most sought after Quarterback recruits of 2014 (for Tom, this was immediately seen as a good omen for our son's sport potential) and Keller Foley, actor Scott Foley's 2yr old son (good news to me because I love the TV shows Scandal and Felicity and would in no way mind having something in common with that handsome and talented actor). Finally, the meaning of the name was discovered to be "companion" or "little champion", which we both found appropriate since he already felt like our little buddy and was the champion of our hearts.
Last but not least, we had to make fun it. To fairly look out for our little boy we came up with all the teasing we could think of so we could gauge how bad it may or may not be. There's the obvious association with Helen Keller, but for what's it's worth we really hope he finds his "Helen". "Killer" is pretty bad-A, if he's killer AT something. It's a headline waiting to happen if he's killer TO something. We very much hope it's the prior! "Kelly" was our least favorite, but if it happens it happens. This nickname gave us the most pause because my (male) cousin's name is Kelly, and we would also be using the same middle name (after my Grandpa) making Kelly and Keller's names nearly the same. We debated this up until days before Keller was born. Should we change the middle name? Do we like any other first names better? We didn't. Finally, we decided it didn't matter. Plenty of people have similar family names, or identical ones! Kelly is in his 20s, he lives across the country, and he's a really amazing guy; we could do much worse.
Then, my favorite part of naming Keller occurred. And this is why I think his name just came to me early on in the first place. The day after my baby shower, I was eight months along and still in much debate over the near-identical naming of Keller and Kelly. I called my Mom and asked her if she would read some names off of our family tree, which she has going back and back and back. Since we were planning to name Keller after my Grandpa Joe, I figured if we had to change then at least it could be after someone on that side of the family. William, Henry, Carl, and many classically older names were on the list. And then Mom said, "George Keller." We had kept Keller's name between us, so I was shocked not only to hear it come up but to hear it was a family name. My Great Great Grandfather's on my Grandma's side, to be exact. I got chills and I just knew we had chosen the right name. Keller would hold meaning to my Grandma, and Joseph would hold meaning to my Grandpa. It was perfect.
And so, the name game was over. It stood the rule test (except for #3, which Daddy made and Daddy broke so I can't be held responsible!) and turned out to be so much more than just a random idea. It was a long, time consuming, thought filled process from the moment I had that extra heart beat inside me. Which is why we could not have been more certain we made the right choice when Keller Joseph was born.
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