Published: February 07, 2008 07:21 pm      

The name game

FAIRMONT — When Nicole Williams found out she was expecting a baby girl, she knew just what she would name her.

Analeese.

“When I saw it (in a baby name book), I really liked it,” she said. “I’d heard it once before on TV and I didn’t know anyone with that name. It was different. I decided on this when I was four months pregnant.”

She liked it so much she didn’t even consider any other name, she said. Still, she did the standard baby name trick of saying the name out loud, “like you’re talking to the baby to see if you like the name.”

“Michelle was going to be her middle name but it didn’t sound right with Analeese, at least to me it didn’t.”

So on Dec. 1, 2007, the world welcomed little Analeese Nicole Sawyer with open arms and a big smile.

“I picked out the names. Ted (Analeese’s dad) just liked it and went with it.”

Just in case, though, they had a boy’s name picked out — Cal — as in Ripken.

“Ted’s a big Orioles fan,” she said with a grin. “We even tried to think of a girl’s name to go with Cal. We thought of Callie.”

Even before he was born on Sept. 4, 2007, Jackson Lee Bowen’s parents had already decided on his name.

“When we found out he would be a boy, we pretty much decided to name him in honor of a baseball player,” said little Jack’s mom, Misty Poe, Times West Virginian city editor and bigtime baseball fan. “We went around the bases.”

She liked Henry Aaron. Mike Bowen, her husband (and Times sports writer and bigtime baseball fan), liked Reggie.

“I’d even written a column all about baseball names for babies,” she said. Then her mother-in-law, Cathy Bowen, suggested “Jackson.”

“I thought it was appropriate,” Jackson’s mom said. “It was the 30th anniversary of Reggie (Jackson)’s historic run in the 1977 World Series.

“It’s funny. We were so undecided but as soon as Cathy said ‘Jackson,’ we didn’t even have to debate it. It was perfect. It felt right.”

Little Jack’s middle name also just fell into place: Lee.

“It’s kind of a family name,” Poe said. It’s the middle name for both her and an aunt.

“All things considered, it’s better than George Herman Bowen,” she said. “It’s not too cutesy” and it comes with lots of nicknames: Jack, Jackie (also another baseball player) and Jackpot.

Little Jack’s big brother and sister also have family-centric names.

Hal Samuel was named for his maternal great-grandfather, having been born on the first anniversary of his death.

Jayme Alice is named for her father James and for his late sister Alice, who died in the mid-1990s.

“I think you should name your child something significant, that means something to you,” she said. “It was such an honor to name Hal after my grandfather, my favorite person on Earth.

“Jayme was named after her aunt. This meant a lot to her father.

“We call Hal ‘Hallie’ and Jayme ‘Jay,’” Poe said. “Very seldom do we actually call them by their given names. We’ve developed so many nicknames over the years.”

Jackson sounds pretty unique, doesn’t it? Poe thought so until she read that it was the number seven baby name of 2007.

“I was sooo disappointed,” she said.

Like all smart parents, they had girl names picked out, just in case: Katherine (for their mothers) and Isabel (for Mike’s grandmother, who had passed away).

“We were going to call her Kate but we got a Jack,” Poe said, laughing.

While expecting her third daughter, Lisa Whetsell would watch the television show “Reba,” which had a character named Keira.

“I just liked that name. It was different,” she said. When the baby was born Dec. 18, a Christmas-y middle name was needed: Joy.

She joins her sisters Gabrielle (“the only name we could agree on”) Marie and Jordyn Leigh, and brother, Benjamin.

For Sonny and Jackie Pethtel, naming their first child — Chloe Shane — was a snap. She’d always liked the name Chloe. Turns out, so did a lot of other moms, so many that it was the ninth most popular girl’s name in West Virginia.

“And Shane is my middle name and was my mother’s maiden name,” she said. She added that her real name is Jacqueline, after her father Jack. Her mother’s name is Janet and her brother is Jason.

Three years later, it was a different story naming their second child.

“We could not figure out a name at all,” she said. “We went back and forth.”

She searched the Internet for a name, discarding “hundreds and hundreds,” she said. Then she saw it.

Renzy.

“That’s it!” the parents-to-be said. And so on Aug. 8, 2007, little Renzy Jade was born.

They added Jade was the name of a good family friend.

“Renzy is one of those names you either like or people will give you this look like they don’t know what to say,” Pethtel said. “There’s no in-between.”

But that’s what she likes about it.

“It’s a little off the wall.”

E-mail Debra Minor Wilson at dwilson@timeswv.com.