what's in a name

We knew we'd have to explain Slane's name, and we like explaining, so here is an explanation. In a much earlier post we joked that we would name our child after a hymn, and every Sunday in church we would laugh at the names of hymns we were singing, or would say, yeah, I like that one.

At the end of October, I had a sinus infection and stayed home from church. Q came home and told me he had the perfect name. They had sung "Be Thou My Vision" and the tune name was Slane. That hymn has always been special to us. I played it at my Profession of Faith when I was in college, and Dan and I had played it together on our Louisiana trip too...and we had our friend Megan sing it and friend Julian accompany at our wedding.

We spent a few days rolling it around on our tongues, and decided it was perfect, boy or girl. It seemed even more appropriate when we considered that she was due on St. Patrick's Day and would have an Irish last name. I did a bit of research to make sure it didn't have any terrible connotations, and Wikipedia assured me it didn't.

Augusta comes from Q's grandfather. Grandpa Daniel's middle name was Augustus. We wanted to use a family name, and most of mine are taken, what with almost 30 great-grandchildren between my two sets of grandparents. Grandpa Daniel was a very special person to both of us. I lived with him for almost 3 summers, and he taught me and Q a lot about life. We wanted to honor him by giving our child part of his name.

So, we've known Slane's name since October, but we did a pretty good job of keeping it a secret...