The Almost Name

Mamakat's Pretty Much World Famous Prompt:  2.) I almost named my child _______, but chose _______ instead because…
  

I like to sit in church before the Mass begins, because it is quiet and I can hear myself think.  Sometimes I'll pray, but other times I just sit and think about...stuff.  On this particular Saturday evening(many years before I met my husband), I was ruminating about what I might name my children, if I should have any, when a male voice in my head said, "Nathan."

If you are in church, and a voice that is not your own says something in your head, I find it is best to pay attention.

"Nathan?"  I thought.  "Really?"

"Nathan."

I thought about it.  I would never in a million years have thought of the name Nathan.   Nathan was a good, strong name for a boy, and it was a decent bet that there wouldn't be hundreds of Nathans running about in the kindergarten playground.  I couldn't think of a single family member, past or present, named Nathan.  I filed the name away, and there it sat for years and years.  Then I was pregnant with a boy, and had to find a boy name.  Nathan floated to the top of my brain, rattling around.

"What about the name Nathan?"  I said to my husband, who was very helpful. 

"No."

I kept thinking about it.  Naming should not be a hasty decision.  The first name has to go with a middle name and a last name.  There has to be symmetry, a rhythm, so that the name flows off the tongue, a song unto itself.   I kept picturing a stadium full of people, and the announcer saying the name of my son.  What name did I hear?  I did not hear the name Nathan.

My father had to put his two cents in during all this.  He had had a dream, he said.  In the dream, God told him that I should name my son Joseph Daniel.  I couldn't help it; I guffawed.  Not because Joseph Daniel is a bad name.  It's not.  I laughed because my dad had told my sister-in-law the exact same thing when she was pregnant with her last child.  My father had become a bit forgetful!  I cheered my dad up by telling him that his grandson's middle name would be Michael, after his father, Clarence Michael.  So we had the middle name, and now we just needed the first name.  I broke down and consulted some of the 40,000 books of baby names, and there it was.

I chose the name Zane instead of Nathan, not for any grand reason, because I liked the sound of the name. I read somewhere that Zane is derivative of John, and I was born on the feast day of John the Baptist, but that's not why I chose it.  I also know that there's an author named Zane Grey who has an entire town named after him.  That didn't really factor into it.  I actually like the sound of the name Zane.  I liked hearing the name not only in my head, but also I liked hearing other people say it.  Zane is a strong, happy name, I think.  The name Zane will never belong to a Goth-y or Emo teenager.  The name Zane will belong to someone confident and capable of forging their own destiny, whatever it may be. 

"What about the name Zane?" I asked my husband, who was very helpful.

"Okay."