What's in a name?

How did we pick our son's name and what does it mean? One day, months and months into my pregnancy I was listening to the radio. The due date was coming up soon and Tim and I hadn't come up with a name yet. Suddenly the name Jonah jumped out at me. Instantly I thought, that's it! It was as if baby called out to me and said, that's the name I want. The name had the qualities I was looking for. It was a Hebrew name which I wanted for our son to honor my Jewish heritage (my father is Jewish); it flowed well with the baby's last name; it had a nice Czech equivalent (Jonas, pronounced Yoh-nosh); it wasn't common; it was easy to spell and pronounce; and finally it had a beautiful and symbolic meaning. Jonah means dove in Hebrew. I'm so glad Tim liked the name too.

A while after we settled on the name Jonah, I dug up my family tree in the basement. To my astonishment, I noticed that Jonas is the first relative we had been able to trace on my dad's side with my last name. Jonas Topfer was born in 1767. It is an an Ashkenazi Jewish custom to name a new baby after a relative that has passed away. This keeps the name and memory alive, and in a metaphysical way forms a bond between the soul of the baby and the deceased relative. So even in this way naming our son Jonah was symbolic.

Now, Jonah's middle name we came up with after he was born. Tim and I wanted to give him a middle name that would represent our love of nature, but nothing sounded right. So, we almost settled on no middle name. When Jonah was one day old, Tim said he wanted to use the middle name King because Martin Luther King is one person he would want to name his son after. I thought King was a bit too strong-sounding, so I suggested Rey. Rey means king in Spanish and when said out loud, it sounds like Ray in English, which has a beautiful meaning... Ray of light or hope. It flows well with Jonah too. So we decided that Jonah Rey will be it!