(Warning: lengthy...but, in my opinion, worthwhile)
We have found (but are not surprised) that within the short one week of Prime's life the question we've been asked the most is "what's up with the name?" We didn't name him blindly, a lot of thought and consideration went into deciding upon his name. Naming a kid is a lot of pressure! And EVERYONE, no matter if they are family, friend, acquaintance, or the grocery checkout lady has an opinion. So this is the scoop.
Matt's middle name is Prime. It's a family name. When I first heard his middle name it was when we were dating. Matt was a member of a "funk hop" band (I know, right? If you'd like a free CD I'm pretty sure we have some in a box in our closet! It's a whole lot of awesomeness) and one of the tracks starts off with Matt saying "My official name is Matthew Prime Coleman" and then a drum solo follows. Anyways, despite being completely twitterpaited every time I listened to it I actually asked him if he was joking about his middle name. And the more I listened to him say it, the more I fell in love with the name (confession...I listened to it
a lot).
So, once we started having children we knew that when we had a boy we wanted part of his name to be "Prime". Personally, I always assumed this meant his middle name. It NEVER crossed my mind to have Prime as a first name...
...Until a few months ago when I asked Matt If he'd thought about anymore names for baby boy. Thinking he'd give me some of the same answer he'd always given me (Heman Thor, Merlin, Dragon Slayer... just to name a few) I was taken aback when he got real serious and said, "You know, I really think we should name him, Prime." So I said (somewhat confused) "You mean as a first name?" (In my mind I was thinking NO WAY!) And that is how it all began.
From then on we bounced Prime back and forth with some other names and decided that, hypothetically speaking, if we were to name him Prime, I would want some sort of family name from my side to put a little of me in there. So since Prime goes 4 generations back on Matt's side, I went 4 generations back on mine (Thank you Wendy and Heather and Claudia for the family history book you made us for our wedding! It came in REALLY handy! I even have a picture of her.) and found a grandmother named Caroline Amelia Owens. Hence, Owen. Not only do I like the name, but her life is fascinating and something to be proud of!
So now we had a few options and the more I thought about it and said it, and wrote it, the more I fell in love with Prime as a first name. BUT I still wasn't convinced that this is what we were naming him.
It wasn't until I saw him for the first time and a little voice in my head said, "welcome, Prime" that I new what his name should be. BUT I doubted for a few hours especially when the nurses started asking his name and I saw their opinions all over their faces (because really they didn't need to say anything...it's all in the eye brown and head nods). So after all the labor and birth were over and we were in our recovery room with just Matt, me, and baby and all was quiet did we make it official.
So we signed the documents and Baby Boy Coleman became Prime Owen Coleman. And since I've committed to the name the eye brows and opinions don't bother me any more. We love his name and feel confident that only a small percentage of people can get away with naming their kid Prime and have a legitimate story behind it other than "I like that Transformer movie a lot". So thank you Grandpa Prime for the awesome name - we can't wait to read stories about you, we've heard you lead an amazing life!
Side Note: As we've been explaining our son's name origin people keep saying, but what about the nicknames?! As we've thought and thought about it we've come up with quite a few nicknames, but we can truthfully say that none of them are too terrible, I know a lot more typical names with worse things that can be connected to them. These are some that we've thought of:
The obvious: Optimus Prime - What's cooler than that?
Rodimus Prime (only elite nerds would know this one - Matt says that he'll give a prize to anyone who knows this one)
Prime Rib - Unless you're a vegetarian, prime rib is pretty awesome!
Prime Time - The best of television
POC (probably the least flattering...)
Prime Minister
All the rhymes: lime, time, mime, dime, etc....
And there are more...but of course I can't think of them now...we'd like to hear if you have any! : )
Prime's first bath...he's wasn't to thrilled about the whole experience. Unlike sister who LOVES her bathes! but who wouldn't love bath time when grandma and dadoo buys you totally awesome alphabet and numbers that stick to the side of the tub when they're wet?
Emmie is constantly counting and saying letters.
