What's in a name?

Eric and I struggled to choose a boy name. We've had a girl name waiting in the wings for a couple of years (which shall remain a secret as hopefully we are blessed with a little daughter one day), but when we found out Monkey was a boy, we went back and forth quite a bit.

I have to give Eric credit for choosing the names. He was the one who suggested Dominic. At first I wasn't too keen as we'd said we weren't going to have any family names as a matter of principle, and this is reminiscent of a family name on my side. However, I still really really liked the name and its meaning ("belonging to the Lord), and couldn't offer up anything that we both could agree on. Finally, 'Dominic' felt right and we decided to go with it a couple of months ago.

Then due to our Mennonite (a peace church) connection, Eric was pondering names that had some sort of peace association, and/or translation. Pax is Latin for peace, and when Eric brought it up one night, both of us were immmediately, "yes, that's it!" We also loved the way the two names rolled together.

Up to a week after his birth, we were having trouble deciding whether to go with calling our son by his first or second name. We decided to call him Pax, at least for now, because we really love it, it's different, and it's easier to revert to a first name later than it is to suddenly adopt a second name as a moniker. We felt that if we never called him Pax it was a gorgeous name doomed to be hidden, as people don't go around sharing their middle names very often. We do love the name Dominic too though, so reserve the right to go back and forth, or call him by both names. And of course when he's older he can decide which he prefers.

Either way, I pray that the meanings of both of his names will hold true in his life - that he would find and be found by the Lord, and become a follower of Jesus; and that his life would be marked by peace, and he would be a peacemaker in all his ways.