Happy third day of Christmas!!

A reader emailed me recently to share her boys’ names — I love when you guys do that!! (Check out my Name Stories tag for more!) I know you’ll love reading about this beautiful family! Emily writes,

“I thought you would get a kick out of our name rules!

Our first we named Leland, we wanted something classic but not common. It was a name of a trustee at my husband’s school and an editor of a Bible we purchased.

Number 2 we named Elliot just because we liked it, a slight nod to T.S. Eliot. We thought it went well with Leland.

We found out number 3 was another boy, and I enjoy several Catholic blogs despite not being Catholic myself, and I fell in love with the name Fulton. What a perfect fit for our boys’ names!

I was wrapping the big brother presents prior to his birth and used dot stickers and noticed the first 2 had 6 letters . . . and so did Fulton! And they all had an L as the 3rd letter! Other things include being last names, sort of British, and generally pretentious 🙂

Boy #4 would arrive in 2018, so we had to find a name that would fit our “rules”! While reading a short story by L.M. Montgomery I came across the name Selwyn, and at first I thought it was too much, but then it really grew on me and now here we are with 4 boys who fit the rules!

… [H]ere are their full names. The first 3 middle names are family names, the 4th middle name we wanted a Bible name with a good meaning and of course flow.

Leland Daniel (God will judge the meadowlands)

Elliot David (God is the Lord, Beloved)

Fulton Ray (Either, Sunshine on the bird enclosure, Or, King of the fields of the village)

Selwyn Jude (Friend of the manor, Praise God)

One more story — when I looked up Selwyn on one baby name website, it said “you may also like: Leland”!!!“

I loved reading about these boys’ names! What a cool theme this family has going! And they’ve chosen really fun, unexpected names — “classic but not common” is a perfect description of them! I’ve never come across anyone in real life with the names Leland and Selwyn (though we love Monk and his boss is Leland Stottlemeyer) — it’s not often I’m surprised by names, and I’m always excited when it happens! Have any of you seen Leland or Selwyn in real life? I love Elliot and Fulton as their brothers, what a great set! Thank you to this mama for sharing these great names!

---

My book, Catholic Baby Names for Girls and Boys: Over 250 Ways to Honor Our Lady (Marian Press, 2018), is available to order from ShopMercy.org and Amazon — perfect for expectant parents, name enthusiasts, and lovers of Our Lady!