What's in a Name?

I just want to share how we decided on Asher Noah for our second baby boy. As most parents know, choosing your child's name is probably one of the most difficult decisions that one has to make. Would my child like his name or would he always think "What were Dad and Mom thinking???".

Lucas's name was pretty easy. We both loved LUCAS and just had trouble coming up with a second name. Good thing Dadi G came up with ETHAN one morning at breakfast. From what I know, he slept at 2 AM that name-searching night (err, morning?). So, LUCAS ETHAN it is.

I've loved the name Noah since I was pregnant with Kuya. But at that time, there was this Piolo Pascual teleserye playing on ABS CBN and his character was named Noah. I thought that a lot of kids might be named Noah due to the show's popularity then. So, Noah was shelved that time.

When we found out that baby no. 2 is a he, JJ immediately sent me an SMS saying "ASHER LEE". I remember thinking, "Nyikes. Saan ba niya nakuha ito?". I told him,  "I like biblical names and mukhang hindi papasa si ASHER LEE." So imagine my surprise (shock is more like it) when I googled "Asher" and this came up:

Nyak. So much for insisting that we can't have Asher because I want a biblical name. I guess you cannot get more biblical than the name being given to the tribes of Israel.

But I really wanted Noah and JJ was gracious (pretending to be gracious???) enough to say we'd go for Noah instead. We spent months coming up with second names. Aiden and Jase were pretty strong candidates. But JJ was not too keen on Jase. Lucas daw might ask why Noah has daddy's name and he doesn't. Okay. So Noah Aiden... but still, it doesn't sound right to me. I wanted JJ to have a say in this too.

I started bringing up Asher Noah. JJ said, "But he'd be Asher in school...". And I am like, "Well, look at Lucas. He is Ethan in school right?". Still, no final decision yet. We decided to make a poll and asked our friends to vote. Asher Noah won hands down but still we were undecided.

Then came June 16. I gave birth na and it was time to write our baby's name in the hospital's forms. No turning back now. I told JJ, "Asher Noah it is..." and looking at our little boy, the name just felt right. And at least Daddy's also happy :-)

Here he is now at more than 3 weeks...

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