Bowen's name

Many people have asked about Bowen's name, so I have been meaning to post this for a while, but it's harder to find time to sit in front of the computer these days...

We had it easy with Duncan when it comes to choosing names.  We wanted to honor Matt's father who passed away in 2002, so when we found out we were having a boy, the name was already decided.  At first, we thought it would be Duncan Matthew, but then realized that if we had another boy, he would have all the family names, so at the last minute (in the hospital) we changed his middle name to Levi.  (Levi is Hebrew for Matthew in the Bible).

When we found out that we were having another boy, the name game was not so simple.  We both just expected that a name would come to us, but as we started getting closer to the due date and still hadn't found "the name" I started to get worried.  I really didn't want to go into labor without a name.  I was ok with having 2-3 to choose from once we met him, but we couldn't even come up with 2-3 names that we both agreed on and liked enough.  Because Duncan is a family name, we would have liked to find another family name for baby #2.  I searched both family trees and couldn't come up with one we liked.  My maiden name, Miller, was at the top of our list for a while.  Neither one of us like the traditional/common names, but we didn't want to go too crazy and make up a name that would be too trendy or weird.  We tried D names to go with Duncan - Decker, Dawson, Dillon, but then I was afraid if we had a 3rd child, finding another D name we liked would be difficult.

I was looking everywhere for a name - on daycare class lists, on the internet, street signs, whatever...  Finally, in mid-September I came up with Bowen.  I'm not sure if I saw it somewhere and then it clicked later, or if I just came up with it on my own, but I liked it.  I always liked the name Owen, but Matt wasn't sold on it.  I loved that Bowen could be a Bo.  Bowen Shoberg had a good ring to it and Duncan and Bowen sounded good together.  I almost let it go without running it by Matt because I thought if he didn't like Owen then why would he like Bowen.  He was on his way home from his annual fishing trip and I texted him "what about Bowen?".  He quickly responded "LOVE it".  When we got home we tested out Bowen with Duncan.  "Duncan, can you say Bowen?" and he responded with the sweetest, shy, voice "bo bo".  That nearly brought both of us to tears and that is when we knew we found his name. YEA! what a relief. 

Just after I got home from the hospital my brother, Nick, e-mailed me an article.  Drew Brees (New Orleans Saints Quarterback and an ex-boyfriend of mine) was expecting his 2nd baby boy any day and he and his wife still had not come up with a name.  He had posted on Twitter that he was taking suggestions for uncommon boy names that start with a B.  I tweeted to him and told him that we just had our 2nd son and named him Bowen and that Baylen (Drew's first son) and Bowen would sound good together.  Apparently Drew got a huge response from fans so I have no idea if he got my response or if it was just coincedence and I may never know but a few days later his son was born and he announced that they named him Bowen Brees.

So....Bowen may not be such an uncommon name now that Drew gave the name to his son, but at least my Bowen had it first :)