Sarah and I went to the hospital on Monday, and our son managed to snag a pretty nifty birthday (unless you’re outside the States): 8/9/10.
Here he is:
He was born by c-section, and we were half-tempted to call him Caesar.
We’re calling him Ash from his initials (Alexander Sage, plus my wife’s surname, which begins with an H). We’ve also taken to calling him
We liked Alexander because it’s a great classical name that will give lots of possible nicknames. We were torn between Alexander and one of its Gaelic forms (Alasdair or Alastar), but when he was fresh from the womb and Sarah was still being sutured, she soothed him by reciting the opening of the Iliad. That settled the matter (and no, we don’t expect him to be anything like Homer’s Alexander, AKA Paris).
The middle name Sage is a nod to the great Carl Sagan. Though it’s not etymologically connected, we liked the sound of Sage as an echo of Sagan, and of the fact that we could also link it by separate derivations to Latin roots meaning both’wise’ (VLat *sapius, cf. sapere, sapiens) and ‘well, sound’ (Lat salvus).
Thanks for your support, and rest assured that this will not become a blog about how cool our baby is.