Noelan - The Name Story

Sorry I've been slacking. We've been really busy with all the family in town for the family reunion. Things are beginning to slow down so I thought I'd jot this down like I said I would.
Hopefully this won't be way too confusing to read when you can't hear me say the names. I tried my best.

Back in April, a few days after I told the boys we were going to have a baby - Joshua randomly asked "If it's a boy can we name him Nole? It probably means Noble." I said "I don't know yet - but let me look it up and see what it means" I took out my baby book and flipped to the 'N' names. I started slowing down when I came to the 'N-O' spellings. I was looking for N-O-L-E. I saw Nola, Nolan, then Nona. No N-O-L-E.
I went back to Nolan which sounded like it could be the full name and have the nickname Nole. I looked at the definition and sure enough next to inherent meaning it said "Noble"
I laughed in awe. I kept looking in the 'N' names and came across 'Noel' which I automatically read as NO-L like the Christmas word. I looked at it again and then read it as Noel (rhymes with Joel) I liked that spelling more than N-O-L-E (because that made me think of mole haha) But I knew that most people would pronounce it as No-L like I did and I didn't want the mix up. I looked at the meaning of Noel and the inherent meaning said "Christmas Child" which made me laugh again because my due date is around Christmas time. One doctor says Christmas Eve the 24th and the other says the day after Christmas which is the 26th.

I told TIm the story when he came home from work about Josh asking if we could name the baby Nole/Noel if it was a boy and that it probably meant noble. I also told him about the process of looking the name up and coming across Nolan and Noel and seeing 'Noble and Christmas Child' I asked him what he thought of the name and he said "I actually like it" I said "So do I - I don't know if I would've picked it out if I was skimming through the baby book but now that I hear it out loud, I like it a lot" We began discussing middle names and a lot of names sounded good with Noel or Nolan. I suggested naming him Nolan and calling him Noel as a nickname. Then I began writing out different spellings of the name Nolan and figured I'd try to combine the two Nolan and Noel and came out with "Noelan" It took a little to get used to because it's different but I like it now. Tim is still getting used to it so I'm not sure if we'll use that spelling yet but we still have time to decide. The top middle name that we came across was 'Chase' which in my book says "Hunter/Pursuer of Truth" I really liked the meaning and I thought it sounded nice. Like I said before we still have time to make a final decision from here to when the baby comes but 'Noelan/Nolan' is the first name and we're pretty sure 'Chase' is the middle name. Although we did joke around about having the middle name be Phelps like the olympic swimmer because I still can't believe that I got pregnant before getting my IUD taken out.

Because all of this happened very shortly after finding out I was pregnant I think it was why I was pretty confident that this baby was a boy from the beginning. I liked the name Lily but I liked having the story behind the name Noelan. I was so sure that he was a boy that I would sometimes call him 'him' before I even got my sonogram. I would've been totally shocked if they said girl at my 17 week sono. Part of that was because at my 13 week sonogram the doctor asked if I was going to find out what I was having. I told her I would like to and that I thought he was a boy. She said "Let's take a look and see if we can see anything - and a minute later she said "I think you're right...I would say about..80%" I had read that it was really hard to see anything that early on because boy and girls look very similar at that point.

A few people have asked if I was disappointed that I'm having 'another boy' and I can absolutely say that I'm not one bit. I would've been happy and excited to have a girl as well but I think this time because I loved the name I was more excited to be having a boy. Even though we were thinking about trying to have another baby in the Summer this was not planned at all. (obviously since I had my IUD in still) I know this baby has a purpose & it's exciting to me that he had a name before we even knew he was a boy. I'm excited to meet Noelan and try my best to raise him to be a noble man just like his name means.