What's in a name?

We had Maryanna, Madison and Macy. So, when I was pregnant for the fourth time...there was no doubt in our mind that we would be having another "M". When we found out that we would be having a boy, we were so excited at all of the possibilities!

After a while, we narrowed it down to "Mark" or "Major". I'm not exactly sure where "Major" came from. We know of two "Major"s that I can think of, but otherwise, we just thought it was kind of cute. When people would ask us what we were going to name this baby and we would say, "Either Mark or Major"...you should have seen the looks. "Major???...I like Mark". This went on for quite some time until it was final...100 votes for "Mark", 1 for "Major". It didn't matter much anyway because we truly did like the name "Mark" every bit as much as "Major". And, looking back, I can't imagine him being named anything else.

I also can't write about the names of our children without mentioning the following... my husband loved the fact that "Maryanna" has 4 syllables..."Madison" has 3 syllables..."Macy" has 2 syllables and "Mark" has one. Neat, huh? Or, strange...however you want to look at it. :) It all just seemed to fit so perfectly together...the six of us. We felt complete.

I have decided to officially start a name gallery for Mark. If you have never heard of a name gallery...it is just a collection of pictures that have the name written in a creative way. It could be spelled in jellybeans or sticks...written in the sand or snow...or, in Mark's case, since he has a pretty common name, photographed from a sign, etc.

Here are the first two pictures. Maryanna wrote his name in the sand on our most recent trip to the beach and I snapped a picture of Mark's name written on the side of the ferry.

I just love looking at his name.

If you have time and energy and want to take a picture of Mark's name for the gallery, please email it to the address posted on the blog's sidebar. Today, tomorrow, next week or next month...whenever.

If you need some ideas, here is the link to the name gallery of our sweet friend, Ayden...

www.thejonesfamily52009.blogspot.com/2009/10/aydens-name-gallery.html