How Tyler Lee Got His Name ♥

I've always had a fascination with names, ever since I was a child I liked discovering new and unusual ones and using them in the little stories I wrote - I've always been a fan of writing. I even went so far as to write down a list of names that I liked along with a whole other series of facts for me to open on my 21st birthday. I came across this note to myself just after I had my son and funnily enough the names Tyler and Lee were on there, I guess it was fate, although I never remember particularly liking the name Tyler, but I must have.

It's safe to say that Jacek and I do not agree on names, so choosing a name for our baby was always going to be hard. Before we found out the gender we were discussing baby girl names and Jacek liked the traditional names like Catherine, Elizabeth and Victoria, I liked the more modern Kayla, Poppy and Lucy, when we found out we were having a boy it didn't make choosing a name any easier. 

I had always wanted to call my son James, but as this was my first boyfriends name Jacek protested. I always liked surnames and forenames for boys and thought that poet names like Blake and Auden would end up being my future sons names, but Jacek disagreed with everything I liked, instead favouring very masculine names like Oden and Maximilian - both of which I hate. Eventually we decided on Taylor, we even had a joke that we'd have four children - Tinker, Taylor, Soldier and Spy - like that awful film we watched whilst I was pregnant, but that name was met with the response - "that's a girls name!" and it really put us off. We had chosen the middle name Lochlainn, wanting some Irish influence in there but that was met with a negative response too, which does nothing but put a parent off a name by the way so if you know any pregnant women or a couple who express what they want to call their baby, shut your mouth unless you have something nice to say, like really!

One night while I was pregnant Jacek and I watched the film Fight Club and if you've ever seen that film you'll remember that Brad Pitt's character was named Tyler Durden and he was a manifestation of everything that the narrator of that film wishes he could be. After we watched that film Jacek expressed that he wanted to name the baby Tyler, probably because Brad Pitt's character was good looking, intelligent, cool, strong... who wouldn't want to have those qualities? I wasn't keen, I thought the name was too common but he insisted and I just agreed. My dreams of calling the baby Samuel, a name a fell in love with during my pregnancy, shattered before me and I was only consoled with the promise by Jacek that I "can name the next one...".

 The name Lee was only chosen an hour before our son was born. I was high out of my head on gas and air but I can remember as clear as day turning to Jacek and saying - "can his middle name be Lee?", it was such an impromptu thing and it wasn't a name I was even considering for the whole nine months but at that moment it came to me and it just seemed as though it was meant to be part of his name. It turns out that Lee means poem and meadow and those are meanings that I love - seems as though I got my nod to poetry into his name after all. Lee is also the name of the river in our city so we got the Irish aspect in there too.

 The story of how Tyler Lee got his name just goes to show that it's not always easy choosing a baby's name but that sometimes fate can give you little hints and nods to let you chose something perfect. I can't say that I am truly in love with the name Tyler, even to this day. In fact, I cringe if he's being naughty out in public and I have to call after him, all because of what that witch Katie Hopkins said about the name when my son was only three months old, it has really put me off. I've discussed all of this in my What's In A Name? post which was written at the time and it's so unfortunate that someone so vile could have made me feel so negatively about my child's name.

People always comment on how 'rockstar-ish' the name sounds and this was even said to us by one of the workers at the hospital on the day he was born. I guess it suits him with his head of blonde curls and his loud screams - rockstar for sure! What do you think, does it suit him?

How did you child get their name? I love reading these types of stories.