Namesakes

I have never shared with anyone the story of how Jav and I came up with Gabriel's name. Many months before I became pregnant we were headed down for a long weekend at South Padre. The drive gets to be a little tedious pretty quick after you get through San Antonio. We decided to go through the alphabet, letter by letter, to find baby names we both liked. Which turned out to be difficult. By the time we got to "G" we only had agreed on two or three names. I was having trouble thinking of names that started with "G". Then I remembered we had just watched The Motorcycle Diaries, based on Che Guevara's motorcycle trip through South America. And I THOUGHT the lead actor's name was Gabriel. Jav said he liked the name too, and it moved to the top of our boy name list and stayed there. And the rest is history.

However, the actor's name is not Gabriel, but Gael. Still a very cool name. But I don't think we would've even considered it as a possibility. A little too different. I think I must have gotten confused due to the actor's full name, Gael Garcia Bernal, being so close to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. So Gabriel is named after a Mexican actor names Gael by way of a famous Columbian author named Gabriel. Oops.

Later on, once we were officially pregnant and thinking seriously about names, we also liked it because it translated to Spanish, and because it was biblical. It translates to "the strength of God". Gabriel was one of the archangels. Gabriel's middle name was Jav's paternal grandfather's name, Valentin. Which I think is beautiful. We really debated about it, worrying that he might be teased. But then decided we needed to give him a strong enough character to not pay any attention to such silliness. I haven't seen many pictures of Valentin, so don't know if Gabriel favors him or not. Sometimes Jav picks up on a personality trait or a way that Gabriel moves that he says reminds him of his grandfather. I wonder, though, if we look for these things a little harder BECAUSE he is named after him.

Joel was not even on our list of names at first. At some piont we added it, but I didn't pay much attention to it. I liked Zachary, and Jav liked Nicholas or Benjamin. We narrowed our list down to 10 names, and were going to decide and start letting family know by labor day weekend. Sometime over the summer, I woke up one day and realized I really liked Joel. I haven't known many Joels in my life,which made it more appealing. I mentioned it to Jav and he said he was still thinking. By the beginning of August we both loved it and never looked back. It was derived from Hebrew, just like Gabriel. It means "The Lord is willing", or "the will of God". It translates to Spanish. It is a strong name, and suits him perfectly.

Joel's middle name is Terrell, after my paternal grandfather's first name. I didn't get a much of a chance to get to know my grandfather very well. He died of a heart attack when I was eight years old. I called him Pawpaw. The things I remember come from the times my brother and I stayed with he and my grandmother when my parents went out on Saturday nights. He was quiet and gentle, with a warm smile, curly hair, glasses and a big round face. He had strong hands and would let me ride "horsey" on his legs while we watched Hee Haw, Porter Waggoner, and the Grand Ole Opry. He was the calm steadiness to my grandmother's frenetic, never ending energy, a pairing that sounds a little too familiar in this house now.

And he is the only person, on either side of our families, that Joel resembles.

Seems we may have hit the nails on the heads in choosing both names for both boys. Hopefully they will be happy with them too!