Saturday, January 26, 2008

The Big Announcement

We've decided on a name for our sweet boy!

His name will be…

Elias John Tapp

How we settled upon this name:

The Arabic/Turkic name for Elijah is Ilias (EE-lee-ahs), and Justin has liked this name for several years. However, we knew that most Americans seeing “Ilias” would not pronounce it correctly. Elias is a Greek variation of Elijah, and Elias (ee-LYE-us) is a common English rendering of this name, so we decided it would work well. So, if we ever live in a different culture, it will be no problem to pronounce it “Ilias.”

He will likely be called Eli for short. The name Eli has historical significance for the Tapp family. Justin is descended from Eli Tapp, who moved to Kentucky from North Carolina in 1833. He and his brothers were the first Tapps to settle in Hopkins County, where Justin still has many relatives.

Plus, Justin has always really liked the song by one of his favorite bands of all-time Three Dog Night called “Eli’s Coming,” and so that will be our new theme song for this pregnancy, and maybe his life (“Eli’s coming, hide your heart girl!”) Here’s a clip of the song performed by the band on a late 1960’s comedy show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChJzR5see1k

John is the name of Joni’s father, who is also her hero. Joni has always wanted to honor her father by naming her first son after him in some fashion. Therefore, it was such a blessing that Justin’s father is also named John, as was his father’s father. That way we could honor three men in our families all with the same name! John is, of course, a Biblical name and many great men in history are also named John.

We wanted to go ahead and get this news out before the Super Bowl, to make sure that everyone knew we were not naming our child after Eli Manning. (Eli Manning’s name is actually Elisha, so ours is clearly not the same, but we expect Eli will be a popular baby name this year.) Regardless of who wins the Super Bowl, our child will still be Elias.

Thanks to all for your suggestions for a baby name – We hope you like our choice!

5 comments:

Charity said...

super cool! i like it!!! :)

Andrew's Mommy said...

LOVE it! We have some great friends in Mississippi who have a little boy who is named.... Elias John Flanery! Cool!!!!

Kristy said...

Love it Joni!! So unique and special! Isn't it fun to be able to talk to him and call him by name while he's still in there??

Anonymous said...

That's a great name, guys! Congrats!

KarenD said...

Great job on getting the name picked out early. Although I know some people who've had their names well before they conceived.

We finally nailed ours down a few weeks ago!