What's In A Name?

One of the questions that I've been asked quite often since Monday is "how/why did you pick their names?"

When I was asked again tonight, I knew I was not only severely slacking on posting, but finally wanted to write the post that I started in my head Labor Day weekend. My procrastination ends now while all 3 of my boys are sleeping...Daddy Striker is finally snoring, a sure sign that he is finally sleeping well. :)

Since we underwent IVF and knew there was a possibility of multiples, I'd picked 2 girl names and 2 boy names months before these guys were even conceived, but didn't share them with Striker until our "name the babies summit" in July after we'd learned we were having boys.

Being a tad OCD, I knew that if they were both boys I wanted them to have the same initials and that there a few family names that made the short list. I also wanted something that was short or could be shortened to something easily spelled since they were destined to spell their last name their entire lives.

Before Striker and I convened for our "name the babies summit", I consulted with the Queen for name suggestions that started with my chosen initials to make sure I wasn't overlooking something. I highly recommend her for assistance in naming your offspring - she's very helpful and thorough ;)

We agreed upon their names very quickly...it also helped that Striker was open to suggestion and only wanted veto power. So, how they got their names (the long version)...

Alexander- Completely randomly selected. At first Striker almost vetoed it. He thought of Alex Trebec, I pointed out that A was already the overachiever and that was fitting and it grew on him in a matter of minutes.

Martin - Striker's middle name (and the Queen's maiden name...she refers to him as "her" twin). Striker and his dad share the same first name but have different middle names. This was our version of that trend. Martin was also Striker's Opa's name.
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Anton - We debated between Anthony and Anton for months. We knew we'd call him Tony either way. There is an Uncle Tony on Striker's mom's side of the family. I was worried about making the poor kid spell both his first and last names his whole life. Anton is the German version of Anthony and Striker really wanted to use it. We tentatively agreed on it, but knew I was concerned...until Labor Day weekend when we were at the annual gathering for the Dance Group and "Anton aus Triol" (popular at Oktoberfest celebrations) was played. Baby B threw a party in my belly and "danced" the entire song. How could we NOT name him after his favorite song? He'd later repeat this performance several times whenever he heard a good polka. In fact we "danced" together at times as well...I'd tap a 1-2-3 beat on my belly and he'd kick back. Should he ever complain about having to spell his name all the time,
I get to tell him that he named himself. ;)

Mikael - We needed an M name to go with Martin and liked Michael/Mikael. The spelling corresponded to whether or not we used Anthony or Anton. Mikael is also one of Striker's closest friends, he was in our wedding, and was in the dance group with Will. It just fit.

And that is where I'd ended this post in my head, until Monday when we learned that the boys' first nurse's name was Jennifer Dahl. According to the resourceful Queen B, there are 110 Jennifer Dahl's in the US. What are the odds that 2 of them would be at the same place at the same time?! Especially that a nurse would randomly be assigned to boys born to someone whose maiden name was Dahl?! Craziness!