July 2, 2002
If I was a boy, my name would be Ryan. That's the name my mom and dad had decided upon. Ryan if I was a boy, Erika if I was a girl. Erika's not my favorite name. It's not my least favorite, either. I wonder how many people, if given the chance to choose a new name, would stick with the one their parents gave them. I don't know what name I would choose.... It has to be hard to choose a name for a baby. The parents usually have a name for the baby before they have even laid eyes on the little one. My parents considered several names for me, as most parents do. Liberty...the bicentinneal baby. Kind of cute. Shane often wishes they had chosen Liberty so he could call me Libby. They also considered Neuria, after a friend they had met while in Tunisia in the Peace Corps. They chose Erika. Erika Emily Klicka. I do like my middle name quite a bit. And I am very thankful that they chose Erika with a k. It is a lot better than Erica or Ericka.
There was a time when my little brother wanted us to call him Nick. Nick was his little friend from school and soccer. My mom did it a few times to humor him and we all thought it was really cute. I think Shane's little brother had a name he liked to be called for a while too. I guess my little brother just thought Nick was so cool and wanted to be just like him.
I guess we name our kids the names we wish we could have been named ourselves. Names that sound pretty or have certain memories attached to them. You spend nine months deciding on the perfect name for this little baby that you have never even seen. A name that they will have for the rest of their lives. It will be interesting to see what names we come up with, when the time comes. I hope we don't come up with names our children will despise when they are older.