i've always felt that names were hugely important for every person. a name can define you and how other people view you. people also can make preconceived notions about another person, before meeting them, based on a name. so i feel it is very important that parents choose a name wisely when they are naming their children. i have always had people say to me about my children's names, "oh that's a great name!" or "that's so pretty!" or "i love that name!" so i thought i would give a little history about each of my kid's names and if they live up to their names. another thing to know about me: with my kids a middle name is very important! most people will rarely use their middle names or they may only hear it when they are in trouble. but in the holt house, they hear their middle names about as frequently as they hear their first names. so a middle name is just as important as a first name here!
NOAH GRANTgrowing up, i was your typical girl and picked out my kids names when i was probably 12. i always knew that i my first son was going to be named noah. of course i knew the story of noah, but i didn't know any noah's in my life. i just knew though that my first son would be noah isaiah, end of story. fast forward 10 years later, and i find myself pregnant. travis and i had not talked about names (because i had the first boy and girl already named in my mind whether he liked it or not) and then we find out we are having a boy!! we were super excited, but that started the big question of what do we call him? i, of course, say, noah. travis hated the name noah! he listed everyway kids could make fun of him. some of them, i thought, were very far fetched. but noah was definitely not his first choice. we each made a list and tabled the discussion for the time being. we decided to focus then on the middle name. i had always thought isaiah would be his middle name, but at that time in my life i really became focused on family and tradition. i realized that my dad did not have any sons and he was the last male in our family and so our family name would die, essentially, with him. that was very sad to me. also, i realized, as he had no sons, he did not have a male to pass on the tradition that had started with giving the males the middle name of grant. i thought about this and thought, i could continue that traditon and give my son that middle name. grant was actually a name travis had listed for a first name, so it was easy to persuade him to give our baby grant as a middle name. so that was decided, time to decide on a first name. we talked about our possiblities with our families and travis mom says, i would love for you to name him noah because that was my grandfather's name and i loved my grandfather. travis had never realized that that was his great-grandfather's name. once he realized that then he said, maybe noah's not so bad. so here we are with noah grant. named for his great-great grandfather and his grandfather. the meaning of his names: noah means "rest, comfort" and grant means "great, large." i don't know. for those that know noah, you decide if it fits him. hmmm.....
AMELIA GRACE 
again, i had a name picked out from age 12, zoey elizabeth. i just knew zoey was going to be my daughter's name. as i grew up and after having noah and just becoming an adult, i decided zoey is just not my favorite name. travis had no ideas for a girl name and was not attached to anything, so amelia's name just came from scratch. i knew i wanted something girly and feminine. we had just seen the princess diaries and it was a favorite movie for our family. the main character was princess amelia. she was not your typical princess though. she was your average girl, thrown into the life of a princess. i really related to her and her awkwardness as i was definitely an awkward teenager who definitely wanted to be a princess. amelia just seemed to be the perfect name. the middle name was just a matter of, again, making lists of our favorite names and then just picking what seemed to fit. so no family names, just what sounded good. name meaning: amelia means "industrious, admiring" and grace means "grace of god." i definitely think this fits her!!
AIDAN MICHAEL
so here we are with little aidan. again, i already had a name for him before he was even thought of. after noah was born i said, my next boy i want to be named jackson william. so i just knew that if this baby was a boy, that was going to be his name. one small problem with that, travis hates the name jackson! i pulled many people over to my side, including his mom and sister, but he was not to be persuaded this time. so again we were starting over from scratch. for his first name we got the ole baby book out again and went through the names. i wanted something different that you don't hear too often. i didn't know any aidan's so it seemed pretty safe. we narrowed it down to aidan and samuel, but in the end aidan won out. next came the middle name. i decided to go back to a family name. mainly because my grandfather had died in 2006 and i was feeling like i needed to honor if not him, then my family. john became a strong contender, after my grandfather. then travis said, well i think i want to name the baby after me. so james was then thrown into contention. finally, i began thinking about men in my family that i look up to and that i would want to name my child after. now this person does not know this, but my uncle lowery is someone i consider a role model! i began to think about his name and did i want to use either his first or middle name? then one day my sister says, i think jokingly, you should name the baby after mychal (my uncle's son). at first i said, "yeah sure," jokingly. but then i thought about it....i really like the name michael. and if michael is a good enough name for my uncle to name his child, then i could name my child michael to. so we chose the traditional spelling and added it to the short list. so here we are with 3 names, all pretty equal in terms of choosing a name. so what better way to choose then to vote on it? so at my baby shower, we passed out ballots and michael won. travis was still campaigning for james and he did not know the outcome of the vote until he saw the completed birth certificate application. i almost changed it to james to make him happy, but michael just really fits! name meaning: aidan means "fiery" and michael means "who is like god?" another one right on! this is definitely my baby!
