My husband and I seriously butted heads when I was pregnant and it came to picking out a name. Drew (my husband) wanted something different and unique. I'm ok with that. He didn't want something where our child went to school and there were 8 other kids with the same name. We wanted some origionality. But, it started getting pretty difficult when he didn't even remotely like anything I did, and he didn't have a list for me to check out either. I, on the other hand, didn't want something too common either. But, I didn't want something so weird and off the wall I would hear this question from my poor child later on "Mom, why did you have to name me this?"
I also didn't want something too long. When I was taking my classes for teaching, I had to get volunteer hours in the classroom. So, I was in the kindergarten class and the teacher said "SIt at your desks and practice writing your name. Once you have finished your entire name, you can go play on the mat with all the toys." The kids worked on their letters to get their name done so they could play and have fun. Then there was this one little brown eyes girl (the cutest thing ever) working earnestly on her assignment. Each kid finished their assignment and went to the mat. She was still there. After the entire class, with the exception of this sweet little girl, had finished, I went to see if I could find out why she was still working with her paper and pencil. Her name was Guadalupe. She hadn't made it past the D.
Now this is only a small thing, but I decided early on that my kids would have easy names. So, Sy will go to school and have to write "SY" and it's easy. He has been able to do it since he was 3. And that's what I had hoped for.
But there is more to this story. How did we come up with Sieben (pronounces Sy-Ben)?
When Drew and I were dating, he casually mentioned he thought "Seven" was a cool name. I guess I thought he was joking. We ended up getting married and once I was pregnant, he brought this up again as an option. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't name my son "Seven." My husband is also a big Seinfeld fan and there was an episode where a couple considered that name when they were expecting. It's also a Mickey Mantel thing. Anyway, back to how we decided. The word sieben is the number seven in the German Language (which my husband has always liked and wanted to learn it). I decided "Hey, that is really cool, he could go by Sy or Ben, it's very unique and different, but not ugly." The number seven is also God's number.
So, his name means seven (which is my favorite number) and that's how we picked it. There is no one with that name, and no one else quite like him . . .
