Names

Even though my son’s name is Luke, I rarely call him that. Have you ever wondered why we even bother to name our kids by a “legal” name at all? With Luke his name has changed throughout his young life. When he was born he was 10 pounds 7 ounces. My husband said he was built like a linebacker and would one day play for the Chicago Bears. That fact coupled with the fact that Luke was constantly hungry; my husband started naming him “tank man” or “Luke the tank man”.


When he was only 3 months old my mother started calling him “mister”. Before long the name stuck, and he would respond to the name “mister” long before his real name. So for much of Luke’s first year of life he was not “Luke”, but “tank man” or “mister”. The poor guy didn’t even know his real name for the longest time; he was probably having an identity crisis.

Then this last year we have being trying out other names for him as well. Depending on the situation Luke becomes “Luke Michael”, “small fry”, “Bud”, "Luke myster" or (my favorie) "Luke-a-Duke". These are just the names that we call him. During his first year of life his cousins called him “baby Luke”. Then after he turned one and he wasn’t a “baby” anymore, he graduated to “Lukie”…although I think they just call him that to aggravate their uncle (my husband).

Not only did we do this to Luke, but now we are doing it to our newest baby as well. I’ve never mentioned her name here before but it is Faith. We usually call her “baby girl”. My husband loves to call her “baby Faith”. Of course with a girl there are so many “cute” options to call her. So I often call her “sweet pea”, “sugar pie”, “sugar plum”, “honey bee” or “cutie patootie”… Sometimes I am so into it that I start to call Luke “sweet pea”…and for some reason that just doesn’t fit so well with him. He may be cute but a “sweetie” of any kind I’m not so sure about. He is more like a little tornado, leaving havoc in his wake…if you get too close you might get “wind damage” from all the toys he throws your direction.

Despite all the names, they are both learning them all. I don’t remember having so many myself…maybe as they get older I’ll limit the nicknames to one or two.