What's in a Name

I have always loved names. I think it’s fascinating that each one has a meaning. I think it’s interesting to find out why a person was given a particular name. I think it’s important to give names that have meaning and importance. I haven’t given either of my children names by drawing them out of a hat. (Although, I confess, the Hunter part of Ethan’s name was all Ed. I am grateful it flows so well with Ethan, however, because already I say Ethan Hunter an awful lot…)

I have a looong list of names on the note keeper on my phone. I use to have an even longer one on paper, but that was lost a long time ago. I’d see a name I liked and have to write it down. Mostly to use as a character’s name in a book I would, perhaps, write. But sometimes I wanted to remember them for a future child. As if I would have a twenty or thirty so I could use them all. Perhaps I should give the names to dogs…

Now, disclaimer: I am not planning on my third child anytime soon. I feel exhausted enough with two. But, on occasion, I do think of what I might name our third child should we have one. A girl’s name is up for grabs. While that middle name is set in stone, we barely agreed on a first name even when I was pregnant with Ethan. Ed doesn’t particularly like my favorite name, although I think it’s more the way I want to spell it than the actual name. The one we agreed on in the end may stick around. Unless the baby would be due in March. Then we might switch to the other one we like, even though it might be a bit odd. But Ireland does sound pretty when it’s said, even if no one in the family is Irish.

A boy’s name, however…  Now that we’ve used my very favorite, we’ll probably move on to our second favorite: Jackson. I’m not exactly sure why Ed likes it, but my reason can be explained in two names: Stonewall Jackson.

Now, if you don’t know who that is then you’re probably an uneducated Yankee. If you do know who that is but do not know why he is a man worth naming your son after, then you need to do some reading. And don’t start with a government issued history text. Not only will that paint him as a Confederate (and so a slave owning looser, which is a blatant lie), it won’t tell you anything about his godly character.

For a long time I simply thought I’d use the name Jackson. It’s acceptable. It’s even popular these days. But I would really, really want my son to know who he is named after and would like to include Stonewall. But Jackson Stonewall? No. Name him Stonewall Jackson and call him Jackson? That defeats the point. And since Ed likes the name, too…

In light of recent political events, the name Stonewall Jackson could prove to be dangerous. But no one seems to blanche at naming their son Joshua, or David, or Caleb, or Daniel. Likely because our world no longer knows who those men actually were because they certainly wouldn’t be considered men to emulate today. In truth, that fact has nearly made my decision for me.

But this week I discovered another name that hammered the nail into the coffin. As I finish reading Shelby Foote’s The Civil War: Volume II, I came across the name of a brigadier general in the Confederate Army. At first I thought it was a typo except that didn’t make any grammatical sense. But just to be sure, I looked it up online and – sure enough – the man’s name was States Rights Gist.

Born in 1831 in South Carolina, his father Nathaniel Gist was a politician and disciple of the great John C. Calhoun. He was such a profound believer in the states’ rights doctrine of nullification politics (in gist – no pun intended – that means a sovereign state has a right to nullify, or set aside, any federal law that is unconstitutional), that he named his son States Rights. Now there was a man who wasn’t afraid to give his son a name to stand on and live up to. Which he did. States Rights gave his life fighting for states rights as he was shot and killed at the Battle of Franklin (Tennessee) in 1864.

There is a lot to be said in a name. And I think Stonewall Jackson is the kind of conversation worth having.