What's in a name?

Perhaps many new parents have known since they were little what they were going to name their future children. Others, like us, scour through zillions of name ideas, trying to find the perfect one. After all, it feels like you are determining a large part of their destiny for them, just by what you name them. (Anyone read Freakonomics?)

Marlin James Scarborough

Still feels new on my lips even though we've been calling him by name since he was born 16 days ago.

When it came down to it, we decided that family names were more meaningful than something random (...and we were having a hard time coming up with anything we liked better anyway).

Ryan's late father was Marlin Russell (August 9, 1939 - June 22, 1987) and though I never met him, he was a pretty amazing man. I could try to summarize what made him such a great dad, husband, community member, but I probably wouldn't do him justice.




And the James. Both of my grandfathers were named James, and both of them were pretty neat grandpas to have.

If our little Marlin James becomes half the man that his late grandpa and his late great grandfathers were, then I'll be pretty proud of him.

Speaking of becoming a man, our little guy is already growing quickly. Had a checkup today and he's up to 7 lbs, 8 oz, and he's already grown 1 1/4 inches!