What's In A Name?

I got a 4.0 in my senior sem. 400 level Shakespeare class. That's not to say I'm either brilliant or special...I just really like Shakespeare, and it stinks for me and anyone else who does, because you can't make any money by enjoying or knowing a lot about his work. So that is a useless drawer of knowledge that I have.

Anyway, there is a line in the play, Romeo and Juliet where Juliet is standing on her balcony talking to herself, not knowing that Romeo is outside just underneath her window listening to her (shady if you ask me...those days it was romantic, these days we'd realize he was a stalker, update a facebook status about it so everyone knows, and call it a deal-breaker, but whatev). So that's when she spits out that famous line, "O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?". And everyone thinks that means she's looking for him, that she's asking where he is. But the word "wherefore" actually means why. She's lamenting and wondering out loud to herself why he's got to be called "Romeo", see because he's a Montague and she's a Capulet and they're all kinds of forbidden to be together because the their two households have an ancient grudge and all that. So she thinks he would be absolutely perfect for her if it just weren't for his damn name. And she's asks,

"What’s in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other word would smell as sweet.

So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called,

Retain that dear perfection which he owes

Without that title"

Which basically means, "What does a name mean? The thing we call a rose would smell just as sweet if we called it by any other name. Romeo would be just as perfect even if he wasn’t called Romeo." or something to that effect.

So why am I putting you through this Shakespeare lesson and what does it have to do with anything? Well, thank you for asking. I have an answer for that.

Joe and I are in the throes of trying to choose a possible name for our next child. We don't know whether we'll be getting a girl or a boy, so we have to have names for both. What we do know is that the child will mostly likely be much darker-skinned than we are. That is something that we're excited about and are prepared to spend the rest of our lives teaching all of our children that the things that make us different, make us beautiful.

Anyway, the name issue. And let me tell you, it's an issue. We aren't really super into the meanings of names. Well, a meaningful name is always lovely but we both want our kids' names to sound nice and be normal and just be something that we like. We went with pretty simple names for our first two, but they're names that we love. We want the same for the next one but we have to be careful. You can't name an African American child some lame-o, whitey, sweater vest name, that's just mean. But it has to be a name that of course we would name one of our children. And that is really, really hard to do. It has to be a good mix and compromise and I'm just not feeling sure of any of the names we've come up with so far. I personally think that girls' names are especially difficult. Is this a problem that I have? Is this normal? I understand that it's a unique situation but is it as big of a deal as I think it is. Oh, what's in a name? Maybe we'll just name him Montague. Montague Cassara. Great. Done deal. Love it. Bye.

Anybody have any suggestions??? I'll keep an open mind. But until we decide, I'll just take Juliet's advice and rest assured that our sweet baby will, in fact be just as sweet and just as loved and just as cherished by Jesus as it would be if we called it by any other name.