So Why Dexter Eliot?

I know Dexter Eliot isn't the most common name around, and Whitney and I have gotten a few inquiries as to the source.

We're both big on names being very important, and we had just a few criteria for what would pass:

• unique but not weird (e.g. Sander)
• meaningful-respectable
• specific to this baby's traits, personality or events concerning his life thus far
• preferably after an author or musician
• doesn't sound like a hick when you pair it with our last name (e.g. Billy Ray)

So we hemmed ourselves in pretty tight. I read through a book 60,000 names and another with 100,000 names and we developed a relatively long "short list". None of them stuck out as a the obvious chioce, so we prayed that God would give us an overwhelming feeling of what the little guy's name was or better yet to show us in a vision or dream. None came for a long time, so we just figured we'd wait until we met him to name him.

Dexter was one of those names on the list. We first contemplated it pretty early on when we were laughing at how often he would pop out on the right side of Whitney's belly (Dexter is a form of the Latin word for "right"). It can also mean "skillful", "prosperous", "righteous", and "dyer of cloth"...and everyone needs colored cloth. Anyway, we figured he'd center up as he filled out the belly, but he didn't so we kept bringing it up and l. In the mean time, one of our friends had a dream about our son - that we had named him Dexter and that all of our friends were laughing at what a funny name that was but how well it fit the baby. Another pro is that Dexter Gordon was a renowned jazz saxophone player in the bebop era, which is my favorite era of jazz. Anyone who doesn't own his album, GO, needs to GO to the store right now and get it. So with all of that in its favor, Dexter was up there on the list.

Eliot was one of the other names on the list. We first thought of naming him this after T.S. Eliot (hence the spelling). Looking into it, I also really liked the origin - Elliott is an Old English form of Elijah, which means "The Lord is my God". Nothing could convey our deepest hope for him more than that.

When he was born, we got a good 2 hours to get to know him before they gave him the K-shot, eye drops, and all the other good stuff that makes babies groggy. And since Whitney did a natural birth without pain medication, he was wide-eyed and alert, showing of his funny little personality. After trying out our potential names on him, we agreed that this was, in fact, Dexter Eliot Ray.

So as we embark on the new stage of life leading a little boy into manhood, we pray that he will be a man who is righteous, skillful, and prosperous, and that the Lord Jesus Christ will be his God and the passion of his life. We ask that you'd pray that for him as well.