What's in a name?

I know there are families out there that wait to name their children until the child is born. I cannot do that. I am not sure if Brian could or not, but I absolutely cannot. I can't have 2 or 3 names and choose after I see the child. I need the baby to have a name as soon as possible, I need the name to connect to the child that is making me sick, kicking me 24/7 (is this just my boys?), and to prepare myself for the years ahead of us. We picked Michael's name pretty early, I think before 20 weeks, and we did the same with this baby.

We have decided (ok maybe it was mostly me, and Brian agreed) to name this little munchkin Zachary Henry. And now that we have officially decided (the letters are on the wall) I think I will record my reasoning, you know, in the event that when he is in the 3rd grade they ask him to write an essay on why and how his parents chose his name (did anyone else have this assignment?). So here goes, my reasoning for Zachary was three fold. I already wrote about one of the reasons here. But I should probably write it down again.

When I first found out I was pregnant, before we ever visited the doctor, before we ever had any idea that this baby was a boy I had a dream. Sounds cheesy I know, but that's ok. I dreamt that I was talking to an older version of Michael, he was maybe 4 or 5 and I was kneeling in front of him or sitting in front of him (at his level), holding his hands, trying to get him to focus and look and me, and saying "Michael you cannot do that to Zach, you have to be nice to him." It was one of those dreams where you are aware that you are dreaming so my conscious self was asking, "Who is Zach?" and I waited, and then my dream self said "Zach is your little brother, we cannot get rid of him, you have to be nice to him." Then it clicked. I woke up thinking, "well I guess we are having a boy". But then I didn't think too much more about it for a few days. The funny thing about the situation with in the dream is that I clearly remember my dad saying almost the same thing in almost the same position to my brother, Brandon, when he was telling him that we were having another brother.

A few weeks after I had this dream, probably around the time we found out that we might be having a boy (so about 13 weeks) I asked Michael what his brother's name was going to be and he replied, without hesitation, "Zach". I remember asking him to repeat it because Zach seemed like such an odd name for him to come up with. We had been reading a book with a character named Zach and I think that is where he got it from, but since that point he was set on Zach. We thought about naming this baby Andrew instead, but when I asked Michael about it he said "My brother's name is Zach."

And the last reason, I wanted to give one of my kids a family name, well maybe not a family name, but a name that drew on their Palestinian heritage... but I don't speak arabic so I needed a name that Brian and I could pronounce and that their friends and teachers would also be able to say. My dad's family is from a village in Palestine named Zakariyya, the village is named for the prophet Zachariah. In June of 1950 the people living in the village, included our relatives were displaced, the majority of the population ended up in the Dheisheh refugee camp in the West Bank. Zachary was the perfect choice for a name- there was an english version and it still drew on that heritage. Naming this baby Zachary seems like a good way to honor that part of our family.

And the middle name. Well the middle name part was easy. As soon as we found out Zach was coming in December we knew we had to name him Henry after Grandpa Suker. Brian's sweet Grandpa Suker has Henry as his middle name, and so did his father. We found tonight that his (Grandpa Suker) grandfather on his mother's side was also named Henry, so we are able to pull from both sides of his family.

I have to say that I love this name so far, I love that it it draws on both sides of the family. Michael's name did too, and I love his name.

I looked up the meaning of both Michael Alexander and Zachary Henry tonight... a few years too late for Michael but interesting none the less.

So here is the info:
Michael- one who is like god
Alexander- helper and defender of mankind

Zachary- remembered by God
Henry- ruler of the home