What's In a Name??

Our little man ~ CADE JEFFREY MATTHEWS

Eric and I decided that we would not share our baby’s name until we were 100% sure that we both loved it. And, we love it. We kept all of our prospects a secret, not because we don’t love your opinions, but because we wanted to love it without influence (except maybe a little from each other).
We both agreed that the middle name would be a family name, but the first name was a little harder to choose. I had made a deal with my sister back in high school that whoever had the first boy would name him Cooper, which of course is our maiden name. Since my dad doesn’t have a son to carry the name on it would be our honor to do so with our son. This however was before either of us was married, and well the decision is no longer just mine! Eric was gracious and tried to love the name as much as I do, but in the end it just wasn’t working for him. I probably gave him a hard enough time, so for those of you Cooper Matthews lovers – no hounding my Husby!
Onto the name… Cade Jeffrey. Eric found Cade online and mentioned it to me. I liked the sound of it and decided to look up the meaning. I think the meaning of a name is really interesting and fun. Cade means round, barrel and a couple other not so flattering references to large, BUT I also found that there was a minor character in Gone With the Wind whose name is Cade. I searched Cade and Gone With the Wind to find that a Wiki definition said that Cade is an alternate surname for a cooper. Cooper means barrel maker. So it is perfect! An interesting connection to Cooper and we both love the name. We chose Jeffrey as a middle name, which is also my dad’s middle name.

So now on to how we told everyone... We had dinner with my parents on Monday night along with our family friends, the Adams family. We brought along a hangman puzzle that I had quickly printed up for everyone to play along. After dinner everyone gathered in the kitchen and living room and plopped down with their pen and paper. We went around and everyone kept guessing letters until we had it all filled in. Everyone had fun and it was a unique way to let out the name little by little.

God is good – I can feel Cade moving about a little every so often and Eric and I are really enjoying praying for Cade by name. His salvation is always top of the list as we pray that he will one day love the Lord as much as we do! Hope you will join us in praying for Cade as he grows in my belly!