Being the proud mother that I am, I love my son’s name. I mean, really LOVE his name. I consider it quite a shame that people only get called by their first name because I wouldn’t mind which name my son got called by.
Jack. Little Jack. Jack-Evan. Jack E. Elijah. Eli.
Around our family, he gets called quite a lot by a variety of his “names”.
Every time someone asks me “What’s his name?”, as all people do when they see a newborn, I reply “Jack-Evan Elijah”. It seems so boring just to call him Jack. You should see how quickly people pause to think that one over. Usually they reply about how long it is. I just grin and say yeh, it’s a mouthful, but I love it!
So as you can tell, I’m very proud of his name.
Why? I’ll tell you. 
(I’m sure you expected me to)
Well, it all started back when my husband and I first got engaged. One day we were discussing children and what we would like to name them. I like short little names. My name is short. Kevin’s name is short. Our last name is even very short. This is a big change for me because I grew up with a LONG last name that no one ever knew how to pronounce or spell. So yes, short names are great.
I’ve always known I wanted to name one of my sons after my father, “Jack”, although in my teen years I wanted Jack Oliver. Kevin didn’t like Oliver though so that was scratched out. How about Kevin Junior? I asked. No way. He didn’t want to name his son Kevin. But what he did want was a name that sounded like Kevin….so “poof”…the name Evan was born in our minds for his middle name.
That settled it. Our first son would be “Jack Evan (Last Name Here)”. Short and sweet and to the point…named long before he was ever thought of.
On November 1, 2007, when we learned by ultrasound that our first baby was a boy, we immediately began calling him “Jack” (Little Jack…as not to be confused with my father, Big Jack). Everyone was told of his name immediately as well. Cards, well wishes, baby showers, all reflected the name Jack Evan.
We had no intention nor inclination that we would soon be adding a new addition to his name!
Round about my 7th month of pregnancy, I began to notice that every time this song, “Days of Elijah” would play at church, the wonderful baby I was carrying would began to dance.
And dance…
…and dance.
It was the only song he ever responded to in my stomach. At first, I was skeptical, thinking it was a coincidence. But after feeling him doing it faithfully for 3 weeks, I hesitantly told my husband, scared that the dancing would now stop since someone else knew. But it didn’t. Kevin was able to actually feel the “dancing” with his hand laid across my expanded belly.
Then we told my parents….and my Aunt Mae, mom’s sister. They all witnessed it too, as Jack Evan continued to faithfully “dance” to that song – and ONLY that song – each and every Sunday morning during my last trimester.
On April 26, the day of my last baby shower, which was held at our church, we “tested” him once more to see if he’d do it outside of the excitement of a church service. My father, who is the sound man for our church, put on “Days of Elijah” and I sat in the sanctuary with my mother, Kevin, and Aunt Mae, awaiting to see what would happen.
He danced. And my mother and her sister cried.
Why? What makes this special is that my mother’s father’s middle name was named Elijah. He was a strong man of God, a pentecostal pastor, that passed away in 1973. Two of my mother’s brothers followed in his footsteps and became pastors as well. The church we attend is pastored by one of those brothers. What’s even more special is that the man who was preaching revival the night Kevin and I met at church (in 2005) was my mom’s other brother – and his middle name is Elijah.
Now I don’t know about you, but I firmly believe in Heaven, God, life after death, the spiritual realm, and mysteries that go far and beyond what our mortal minds are capable of comprehending. I believe there are forces at work that we will always be incapable of understanding on this side of eternity. And I believe that much more than “coincidence” was going on each time my child danced in my womb. We all felt God had his hand on this baby, and there was a strong spiritual connection between the song “Days of Elijah”, and the two strong men of God in our family, both of whom bore the name Elijah.
So on April 26, we made the final decision that “Elijah” would now be this baby’s new middle name, and Jack-Evan would become a hyphenated first name. The feeling to name him that was so strong amongst all of us that we weren’t able to deny it. To not name him Elijah seemed, somehow, wrong.
Jack-Evan Elijah was born on May 4, 2008, exactly one week later.
To this day, Little Jack still responds positively to this song – the only song he seems to “know”. It soothes him, calms him, and will stop him from crying. In fact, I am playing it right now. Jack was a bit fussy and as soon as I put this song on, he quieted down and stopped crying immediately.
We will be passing this tale along to Jack when he is capable of understanding,
so that he’ll know how special his name is, and how he “named himself”.
