The Story of Matthew’s Name…

I told you the story of Samara’s name what seems like forever ago, and when I did that, I set up draft posts so that I could remember to come back and write about the story of Matthew’s name and my name.  It’s nice to have this chronicled for the kids.  One day, they’ll appreciate it.  (I hope.)

I’m sure, growing up, that I had selected names for my future children, but I don’t remember them.  When I got knocked up pregnant with Matthew his father and I discussed names at length.  His father’s name is Justin and for the longest time, I wanted to name our son Justin, but his dad just wasn’t overly thrilled with that.  I didn’t want him to be a Junior, just Justin with a different middle name, but it wasn’t happening.  I lost the battle.

While his dad wasn’t overly keen on giving our child his first name, we began to discuss at length, giving him his middle name – Matthew.  The more we talked about it, the more we decided that we liked that and we decided that our first born child would be named Matthew.  Of course, this was only if the child that would pop out was male.

When it came to girl names, that was so much easier to pick.  I don’t think we ever went back and forth on girl names.  I wanted to name my daughter Kaitlyn Ashleigh.  He didn’t have a problem with it.  It was settled.

But, 20 weeks in, we found out that the child that we were having was most definately a boy and while some people have given their boys, girl names, I’m pretty sure Matthew is thankful that we had a plan B.  So, we knew that he would be a Matthew but what middle name would we give him?

In all honesty, I don’t think we thought about it much, but I remember one day at work, (he and I both worked at the Spaghetti Warehouse), the lucnh rush was over and he came out to the hostess stand where I was sitting, all 5,000 pregnant pounds on me, on a stool that I’m sure could barely hold my weight, and the topic of a middle name came up.  I’m sure that I brought it up because it was something that was left undone and in my control freak manner, I needed to know what we were going to name this child so as to not be at the hospital and picking something, anything, just to plop on a birth certificate.  (I didn’t believe in packing a bag, but by God we were going to have a name!)

The lineup for the servers who were working that day was sitting on the stand and he reached over and grabbed it and started going down the list. “Matthew Daniel, Matthew Michael, Matthew…” and he just kept reading Matthew in front of every male name that was listed there.  We made it through the servers and I shook my head at every combination I heard.  None of them were doing it for me.

There was one name left on the list, the bartender.  “Matthew Allyn,” he said and my ears perked up.

“Matthew Allyn,” I repeated and when I did, I knew that our child would be called Matthew Allyn.  “I like that alot,” I said, “And I want to spell it the same way that Allyn does too.”

Allyn was a cool guy.  I liked him alot.  When you work in the restaurant industry, you meet some interesting people, but Allyn was more mature.  He was married, and both he and his wife had full time jobs but worked there, together, for some extra cash.  You could always count on Allyn to do the right thing, show up when he was supposed to, not be hungover, and not cause any trouble.

We told Allyn what we had just done and I remember him smiling when we did.

Just like with Samara, Matthew’s name came from a co-worker as well, not that we named them after these people, but more as a reminder that we weren’t creative enough to come up with names on our own.  Sometimes, I wonder what it would have been like if I would’ve had access to the internet when I was pregnant with Matthew.

The name Matthew is of Hebrew origin as well and means “Gift of the Lord” which is ironic.  When I became pregnant with Matthew I saw him as anything but a gift.  I was 19 and he was interfering with my plans.  But as time has gone on, as he and I have both grown, I can see Matthew for the gift that he really was.  He was my gift of life.  I was on a path that I’m not sure where it would’ve ended, but I’m pretty sure no where good and Matthew gave me a detour.

Allyn means “handsome” and so I will go around calling Matthew my “handsome Gift from God” which fits him to a T.

Of course, one other funny side note….

Remember how we were going to name a girl Kaitlyn Ashleigh?  Some time after we determined that Matthew was, indeed, going to be a boy and had decided to save our girl name for later, we were watching the TV Guide channel to see what was on the boob tube.  As one of the movies scrolled by, I noticed that one of the stars’ names was Kaitlyn Ashleigh, spelled just like that.  “Hey!  Look!  There’s the name that we picked out for a girl!  She would’ve had the same name as a famous actress.”

It was then that we looked over and realized that the movie this Kaitlyn Ashleigh was starring in was on a porn channel.

So, if you’re wondering why Samara isn’t named Kaitlyn, there’s your answer.

Until next time…