What's in a name?

I LOVE the name that my friends picked for their new baby boy. And for some reason, it has been on my mind a lot and brought all kinds of good images and thoughts about who he might become, if a name has anything to do with it.

Wesley
-the name of a famous theologian and this baby being the son of a pastor the connection is apparent. But I can't say I know too much detail about him and don't care to study that right now, so we'll leave it at that. Cool, he was a theologian.

-the other Wesley that keeps coming to mind is the hero of The Princess Bride (which I happen to know is a favorite movie of the parents) - the attributes of strong, sweet, and persevering come to mind. Also his catch phrase, "as you wish" is one that every parent would love to hear from their child. I'm hoping this is much heard in their household.

Wendell
-the Arrested Development song Mr. Wendal was the first connection that came to mind and while I couldn't remember all the lyrics the general message I remembered was generosity. A very valuable virtue. So I just looked up the lyrics and it's about a guy taking the time to listen to a bum. The scripture "Whatever you do to the least of these you do to me." comes to mind. And also the one about wisdom on earth being foolishness to God and vice versa. "Be strong, serve God only. Know that if you do, beautiful heaven awaits." are lyrics in the song - I hope these for little Wesley Wendell

Finally, his initials WWW, are, of course, shared with those of this World Wide Web. Very appropriate as his parents are blog-writing, facebooking, iphone officianados. And the fact that they had dozens of us stalking facebook for the play by play in the delivery room and had posted photos within an half hour of baby's birth. Which we all loved! And let me tell you he's www.cute! (this is not a real link that I know of.) The alliteration in the name also adds a wee bit o' whimsy.

So what we have in summary is a boy who may grow to be a deep spiritual thinker, strong, sweet, persevering, obedient, humble, generous, a friend to the weak and friendless, who serves God, and tries to connect with the world (possibly by using the latest technology), with a good sense of humor. That's my prayer for him.

The literal meaning of the name - western meadow wanderer. Sounds cool. And definitely better than being east (of Eden).

Disclaimer - I in no way know that any of these things were on the mind of the parents who chose the name. They are purely objects of my imagination. Any resemblance to actual facts is entirely coincidental. I can't say that I've ever even thought about anyone's name in depth like this, but for some reason this one brought out the analysis in me. (I know that's not grammatically correct, but I like it anyway.)

I just remembered that one of the first sermons I heard from W's dad had the theme along the lines of "what's in a name" in which he shared that was disappointed to find out that though he had a biblical name he was not necessarily named after the bible character. If the choosing of this little guy's name has any of the level of the meaning I've attributed to it, maybe it's in answer back to that. Again, purely imaginative speculation.