Unique and Different

Over at Kelly's we have Show us your life: Baby names

Today I am excited to share the beautiful names my children have!!

My husband and I both have names that are beautiful (thanks mom & dad) but can be frusterating at times. My name is Elizabeth - my parents, family and friends call me Beth. Elizabeth is one of the most commonly used names for girls - across generations. Elizabeth is niether an old lady name or a new hip name, it's just a classic. Elizabeth is #11 on the list of most popular girl baby names, in 1982 it was #1, and has been rated on babynames.com over 25,000 times. I'm sure you know several Elizabeth's (also Beth, Liz, Eliza, Lizzy, etc etc etc). And, there are countless more that the name is used as a middle name because it just goes nicely with almost anything. In fact, my Mom's middle name is Elizabeth.

Brent is named a frusterating name because it sounds like so many other things. Brett, for instance, is the most commonly what someone thinks is his name. It's so bad that Brent actually replies if someone says "Brett." He also was named Brent when his older brother was named Clint. Hows that for frusterating.

So, when we concieved our first child, we were set on a unique name. And, we like it so well that each of our children are named things that are different and special.

Our daughter (first child, now 3 1/2 years) is named



Darbie (Dar-BEE) has gotten a bit more popular after we'd chosen it. Apparently, the new Winnie-the-Pooh child is named Darby, but that was so after we picked this name. Origonally, I heard the name when I was 14 and went to visit a friend's family in Anderson, SC. We went to chuch with them on Sunday and there was a redheaded girl in our sunday-school class named Darby. I loved this name and remembered it. I even used it as a pen-name for some time, and when Brent and I met on the internet, that was the name I used frequently to protect my real name (because my parents wanted to be sure no crazy stalkers would come kill me). Darbie is our own personal verson of "Darby" which is more commonly a boy's name. If you look up the name spelled with the ie in a baby name site, it will not find anything usually. Darbie means "a new creation"

Alina (Ah-LEE-Nah) is still a rather rare name, though the close sounding names "Elaina" "Elaine" etc are more common. It means pure and noble. This name was commonly used in Russia for princesses and royalty. (how fun, right!) This is the name we call her by (though she knows Darbie is her name as well because she gets that one when she's in trouble or I need her to respond quickly)

Our first son (and second child, now 18 months) is named


Raziel (Raah-Zee-el) is incredibly uncommon. If you look this one up, its not even on the charts and most baby name sights have never heard of it. Brent claims he did not name our son after the only place I had ever heard of it (a terribly gruesome video game about a soul reaver) but that it is in the book of Revalation (I have yet to see it there, but whatever). It is the name of an archangel. It's also italian and means to be full of light. This is the name we call him by.

Alaxander (pronounced normally) is a more common name, we just spelled it funky to match his first name a bit more. Alaxander means defender or protector. We put this together with his first name meaning and say our son is the "Protector of the Light" and that is incredibly prophetic. My family was thrilled when we said we were using this middle name but terribly dissapointed when we shot down all attempts at calling him this name. Alex (no matter how spelled) is a common name and we didn't want to do that! (nothing wrong with it if you like common names, just not our thing)

Our second son (third child, 7 weeks now) was much harder to name. We batted around names forever and actually came up with the exact combonation about 2 weeks before he was born. He is named


Judah (joo-dah)is biblical but not used too often (like alot of biblical names -- John, Mark, etc). I thought of this name during the name-finding process and fell in love with it. Brent hated the name initially but has grown to like it since I wasn't faltering and he let me pick the name. Judah was one of the special tribes of Isreal - they were the tribe that followed David as king before all the others (along with Benjamin). This is also the tribe that Jesus was born to. Judah means "praised one" This is the name we call him by.

Malachi (mal-a-kye) is also biblical. This was the prophet that wrote the last book of the bible and closed the gap between the old testament and the new testament. The book of Malachi is the bridge between old things and new things, and it was prophesied over our son in the hospital that he would be one that did the same(cool!). Malachi means "messenger of God"

If we have another girl, we want to use the name Tamari
If we have another boy, we're in alot more trouble than the name!! :-)

When we are picking out a baby name, we think very carefully about what we will call them. The thing about the name you call your child is that the meaning is spoken over them every single day. What blessings do you want to say over your child repeatedly by everyone? In our case, we opted "Pure" for our daughter, "full of light" and "praised one" for our sons.