Saturday, May 15, 2010

What's in a name?


Getting married and having a baby requires a lot of big decisions, other than 'what color should we paint the nursery?' or 'who should DJ the reception?' So far we've fielded a lot of the baby-related decisions without much difficulty or confusion. We've got a lot of support, have received a lot of good advice, and fortunately have access to great facilities in our area.
Getting married has been a little more difficult to figure out. We have yet to set a date, because we're a bit overwhelmed by the idea. Sooner or later? Spring or Fall? Conflicts? Location? Lucky for us, we don't have to make a decision right this minute, and will likely wait until after Orion's arrival to make any further plans.
One of the biggest questions I have to answer is what to do with my name. Again, this can wait a few months, or even a year. My options, to keep my name, take Russell's name, or to hyphenate, all have pros and cons. I know I'd like for our family to all have the same name, which would pretty much require me to take Russell's name, or to mess around with hyphenation and middle name organization. But Russell is so open-minded that he offered another option, which is for all of us to hyphenate and be the Denison-Woods family. I kinda like the sound of that, but it does create quite a bit of 'name' for all of us, and hyphenation as a practice doesn't really carry that well through generations. I've been thinking about it, though none too strenuously... Until now.
We have to decide on Orion's name. We've got the first and middle name down, Orion Colie, but now we need to decide what we're going to do as a family. So should his name be Orion Colie Woods, or Orion Colie Denison-Woods?
I'm just not sure what I think. It is also a big dose of reality to have to make a choice like this! It makes him really real and present with us to put his name down on official papers!
Feel free to comment on this if you have any thoughts... I may not agree, but I'm curious to see what you think!

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