Oooh, a meme
I generally don’t participate in memes, nor do I get tagged a lot, which is fine with me. But this one is interesting, so I’m volunteering myself.
I love the story of how we came up with Lauren’s name, since it’s a real indicator of how things work in our house.
I really wanted to name her Erin. Mark really wanted Laura. You do the math.
But it suits her, and it isn’t that common. Common enough, but not too much. Her middle name was a bit more of a challenge, maybe. It was initially going to be my maiden name, which is a first name for girls. One morning when I was about 5 or 6 months pregnant with her, I woke up with the sure knowledge that her middle name was Nicole. I’m not generally one to remember, let alone pay the least bit of attention to dreams. (Sorry, LL) But this was something I just knew. Thank goodness Mark was fine with it. Or he was too scared of the crazy pregnant lady to argue very much. It was for sure one of those two.
For Sam, it was surprisingly easy. Considering that we have a . . . ahem . . . distinctive . . . last name, we wanted something simple. And short. And easy to spell.
I do love the name Jack, but since that’s my dad’s name (yes, it’s really cute. Jack and Jill.), it was out. Mark and I agree that naming kids after a relative is generally a bad idea. I want our kids to make their own way, and not have the weight of living up to a standard that they (and we!) didn’t set. Plus, I can just see the reaction had we gone that route, and it wouldn’t have been pretty. Mark’s dad’s name and my dad’s name just don’t go together and there’s no way we would “honor” one of them and not the other, so we struck out on our own.
We considered several names, but Sam just felt right to us. The only disagreement was whether it would be Sam or Samuel. I won that time, because I wanted him to have the choice to have a more formal name later in life if he chooses to use it. But he goes by Sam.
Lauren Nicole and Sam Ryan, the lights of my life.
Jill's Place 
Wonderful! One of my best friends is named Lauren and it’s such a gracious name.
Sam is also a favorite for us.
Great choices!
You have picked such lovely names. This comment is coming from me; a person with the same name as my mother (Eleanor), who married someone with the same name as his father (Larry). How weird is that! Needless, to say we did not pass on the “curse” to our children.
Ele
Thanks!
I forgot an important part of this story. We did share both kids’ names with anyone who asked, and were especially happy to tell the grandparents what we had decided to name the kiddos. It seemed to make their excitement even greater, and made the whole thing “real”, since our daughter was the first grandchild born on both sides of the family. They were not given any veto powers, although we were happy to pleasantly listen to their reaction (and then ignore it, of course). Their reaction had nothing to do with our decision – we weren’t changing things at that point!
It was good practice for them, getting used to us (possibly) considering, but not necessarily following, their input on all sorts of parenting issues.
The only person who had significant input on our son’s name was our then-five year old daughter. Her, we listened to and definitely solicited her opinion. In fact, she picked his middle name from a short list. Of course, she was also the first person to hold him after he was born, besides us, and not even the grandmothers could hold him until she was ready to let him go. Boy, they were not happy about that!