Adele Caelia

My husband and I found out that we are having a boy. We are extremely excited after having two girls! We have also decided that we are going to name him Tristan Avery. I love the name Tristan. For those of you who know your lore you will probably think of the story of Tristan and Iseult or sometimes known as Isolde. I love this story, in fact it is one of my favorite. Recently we also watched the movie, which is actually far different than the real story, but still made a very good movie.

We were going to name the baby Gavin, but over the past week we have met at least five people who are having, have, or know someone who has a baby named Gavin. This name has also jumped up quite a lot on the baby name list, and we don’t want to name our child the same thing everyone else is having.

Well this is where the drama begins. My mother in law really liked Gavin, but when we told her that we changed the name to Tristan she started freaking. “Tristan! Tristan! What kind of name is Tristan! I have never heard of that! Spell it.” This was said in a high pitched squeaky voice. I told her that I can’t believe she hasn’t heard it because it dates back to medieval times, and the name is becoming quite popular again. I also told her that there was recently a movie released with the name in the title.

Well now she calls the baby “the baby” or “he”, and previously she always referred to him as Gavin. Now today my father in law comes up to my husband and says, “So you changed the baby’s name?” and my husband says, “Yes, Gavin was just too popular.” and then he says, “Tristan… isn’t that like Kristan… a girl’s name?” and my husband says, “No, actually it isn’t.” and then my father in law says, “Well, I have never heard of it.” and he walks off. The irony of this is that my father in laws name is Kim… Yeah, can’t get more girl than that! Who is he to say what is a girls name!

Seriously, this is getting to be annoying. Obviously he and my mother in law were discussing our name choice and how they didn’t like it. Secondly, they were never this concerned with what we named our daughter. This is the first male to be born in the family after my husband, and he will be the heir to their family business. Perhaps for this reason they think they have some say? My mother in law even called my husband to ask if she could choose the middle name! Hell no she can’t!

My friend Paul Presley brought up a good point, that in this day and age it is sad that people still put more worth on the birth of a male. People go nuts when they find out that a baby is a boy. Perhaps using a name from a popular medieval story is fitting after all.