The Story Behind Our Son's Unique Name: A Journey of Discovery and Love

As we embarked on this journey of parenthood, Ryan and I knew that choosing a name for our son would be a crucial decision. We wanted a name that was not only unique but also easy to understand and pronounce for our child's entire life. After months of searching, we finally found the perfect fit – a name that reflected our love for each other and the universe.

The Origin of the Name Aan

Our journey began when Ryan, an avid NFL fan, suggested we choose a name inspired by his favorite team, the Ravens. We took the "r" off and came up with Avens, which we immediately fell in love with. However, as soon as we introduced the name to others, it became clear that it was more commonly associated with girls than boys. Undeterred, we wanted a name that stood out, but also one that would be easy for our son to pronounce and spell. We started researching alternative names that fit our criteria.

The Starbucks Test

To test the ease of understanding our chosen name, Ryan went into a Starbucks to use it as his pseudonym. He confidently walked up to the counter and said "Aan." The barista looked puzzled, but instead of writing down "Aan" on the cup, she wrote out "Avon" – a completely different name! We were disappointed, but not deterred. We continued our search, determined to find the perfect name.

Evan: A Turkish Name with a Universe Theme

Our next contender was Evan, a Turkish name that means "universe." This resonated deeply with Ryan and me, as we both love cosmology. However, when we put Evan to the test at Starbucks, it didn't quite pass. The barista thought he said "Everett" instead of Evan! We realized that we wanted a name that wouldn't be difficult for our son to pronounce or spell throughout his life.

The Final Name: Carter Gray Thomas

After much contemplation and testing, we finally settled on the name Carter Gray Thomas. While it may not be as unique as some other names, it feels right to us – easy to say, easy to pronounce, and easy to spell. The middle name Gray is a personal favorite of mine, and I love how it flows with the first name. We're excited to see how our son will grow up with this name and make his own mark on the world.

A Nursery Reveal: A Universe-Themed Space

Our nursery reveal was a special moment for us, as we incorporated a universe theme into every detail – from the starry night sky on the walls to the constellation-patterned bedding. It's a reflection of our love for cosmology and our desire to create a space that sparks wonder and curiosity in our child.

A New Chapter: Welcome to Carter!

As I write this article, my due date is just around the corner – January 10th is when we'll finally meet our little bundle of joy. We're excited to share updates on his arrival, including the exact time, weight, and any other details you'd like to know. Stay tuned for a series of posts on social media, starting soon after Carter's birth. We can't wait to introduce you all to our beautiful baby boy!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi guys and welcome back to my channel so this is not actually the original video I filmed this week I had done an organization video but I realized that this weekend was Christmas and a lot of people would be traveling and spending time with family and I didn't want my video to get lost in the shuffle so instead I decided to share with you guys what we decided to name our baby and instead of just blurting out the name I'm going to share with you the progression we went through so basically the top five names we picked out finishing with the name that we decided to go with the first name that Ryan and I both liked was Luca I just think Luca is such a cute nice name I really loved it but when we were kind of using it and settling in with it after a couple weeks Ryan started to feel that it sounded to Italian and it is an Italian name but neither Ryan or I are Italians so he kind of started to feel like it didn't fit with us and our personality so that name kind of fell away so the next name that we both came to really like was Rowan and the reason I just love this name is I think it sounds really strong and masculine it's a little bit different but not too weird it almost to me sounds like a Greek god or something like that so we were both really feeling Rowan for a while and then it just so happens that Ryan was at the gym one day and he met a new friend and when he asked the guy what his name was the guy said Rowan for whatever reason Ryan couldn't understand him so he goes what what was your name and the guy goes Rowan like row in a boat so Ryan can't get this image out of his head he doesn't like the idea of Rowan a boat so Rowan fell off the list so the next name we had picked out was a name that I thought that I made up and that is aan Aven and this name actually has some meaning for us so the first is that the street that we live on which is the street of our very first house together starts with aen so that's a cool little meaning and then also Ryan loves the NFL football team the Ravens and if you take the r off of that you have avens so as soon as he heard that he was totally on board we were Team aan all the way and the name was going to be aan James which we just thought sounded so cool but when I started looking into it I realized that I had not made up the name it is a name that exists and it is typically used for girls like 90% of the time this is a girl's name and we were willing to get past that but another criteria we had is we wanted a name that was easy to understand and easy to pronounce because we didn't want our son to have to go his entire life having to kind of repeat his name or spell it out to every single person he met so that's when I instituted the Starbucks test basically I had Ryan go into a Starbucks and use the name aan to see what kind of reaction it got see if they could understand him see what they wrote down on the cup so he goes into Starbucks and when they ask for his name he says aan and right away things weren't looking good because she goes to write on the cup and she kind of has a confused look on her face but we were optimistic and we went over we were waiting for the drink then when the drink was ready we see the other Barista look at the cup and she has kind of a surprise look on her face she calls another Barista over to look at the cup they're kind of conversing for a minute and then she ends up just calling out the name of the drink we grab the cup and we look at what was written there and what we had was Avon a v o n so at that point we kind of looked at each other and we're like nope aan you're out we still hadn't given given up on finding a unique and unusual name so the next name we found was Evan and everan in the United States is not even in the top 4,000 in terms of popularity but it is a Turkish name and it means universe and that's something that's really special to Ryan and I because we both love cosmology if you saw the nursery reveal you would see that his Nursery has a universe theme to it so we really love the meaning of Evan so we were really feeling everan for a while but it still had to pass the Starbucks t so the first time I sent him to Starbucks to use everan what the person thought he said was Everett so the second time he went into Starbucks to do the Starbucks test they thought he said Evan so when we really thought about it we just didn't want him to have a name that would be difficult for him his entire life that he would have to pronounce and spell so that's kind of why Evan fell off the list so that all leads us to the final name and you might be surprised because it's not nearly as unique or unusual as some of the other choices but but we just love it it fits us it feels right and his name is Carter Gray Thomas we feel like it's a really solid name it's easy to say it's easy to pronounce it's easy to spell and even though it's in the top 25 names I believe nationally in California it's not in the top 100 so we don't feel like he's going to have a million other Carters in his class more so than anything else when we started using the name and referring to him as Carter it just clicked it felt right it felt natural and in terms of the middle name gray we just love that as a middle name and that pretty much would have been the middle name with any of the names that we chose we just think it's so cool at this point the name is locked in we love it I hope you guys like it too I don't think it's anything that's too controversial so yeah that's it Carter should be with us very soon my due date is January 10th so a little bit over 2 weeks from now stay posted on my social media specifically Instagram that's where I'm going to be announcing when he's born if you notice that there's a week or two here where I'm not posting a video on YouTube it's probably because he's been born actually now that I think about it it might be fun to have a little beding pool out there so let me know down below when you think he's going to be born the date and time and also his weight and I'm going to be looking down below all right so that's going to be it for this week I hope you enjoyed hearing the little story of how we came to his name and I really hope that you guys have a great holiday weekend and I will see you next week with a new video byehi guys and welcome back to my channel so this is not actually the original video I filmed this week I had done an organization video but I realized that this weekend was Christmas and a lot of people would be traveling and spending time with family and I didn't want my video to get lost in the shuffle so instead I decided to share with you guys what we decided to name our baby and instead of just blurting out the name I'm going to share with you the progression we went through so basically the top five names we picked out finishing with the name that we decided to go with the first name that Ryan and I both liked was Luca I just think Luca is such a cute nice name I really loved it but when we were kind of using it and settling in with it after a couple weeks Ryan started to feel that it sounded to Italian and it is an Italian name but neither Ryan or I are Italians so he kind of started to feel like it didn't fit with us and our personality so that name kind of fell away so the next name that we both came to really like was Rowan and the reason I just love this name is I think it sounds really strong and masculine it's a little bit different but not too weird it almost to me sounds like a Greek god or something like that so we were both really feeling Rowan for a while and then it just so happens that Ryan was at the gym one day and he met a new friend and when he asked the guy what his name was the guy said Rowan for whatever reason Ryan couldn't understand him so he goes what what was your name and the guy goes Rowan like row in a boat so Ryan can't get this image out of his head he doesn't like the idea of Rowan a boat so Rowan fell off the list so the next name we had picked out was a name that I thought that I made up and that is aan Aven and this name actually has some meaning for us so the first is that the street that we live on which is the street of our very first house together starts with aen so that's a cool little meaning and then also Ryan loves the NFL football team the Ravens and if you take the r off of that you have avens so as soon as he heard that he was totally on board we were Team aan all the way and the name was going to be aan James which we just thought sounded so cool but when I started looking into it I realized that I had not made up the name it is a name that exists and it is typically used for girls like 90% of the time this is a girl's name and we were willing to get past that but another criteria we had is we wanted a name that was easy to understand and easy to pronounce because we didn't want our son to have to go his entire life having to kind of repeat his name or spell it out to every single person he met so that's when I instituted the Starbucks test basically I had Ryan go into a Starbucks and use the name aan to see what kind of reaction it got see if they could understand him see what they wrote down on the cup so he goes into Starbucks and when they ask for his name he says aan and right away things weren't looking good because she goes to write on the cup and she kind of has a confused look on her face but we were optimistic and we went over we were waiting for the drink then when the drink was ready we see the other Barista look at the cup and she has kind of a surprise look on her face she calls another Barista over to look at the cup they're kind of conversing for a minute and then she ends up just calling out the name of the drink we grab the cup and we look at what was written there and what we had was Avon a v o n so at that point we kind of looked at each other and we're like nope aan you're out we still hadn't given given up on finding a unique and unusual name so the next name we found was Evan and everan in the United States is not even in the top 4,000 in terms of popularity but it is a Turkish name and it means universe and that's something that's really special to Ryan and I because we both love cosmology if you saw the nursery reveal you would see that his Nursery has a universe theme to it so we really love the meaning of Evan so we were really feeling everan for a while but it still had to pass the Starbucks t so the first time I sent him to Starbucks to use everan what the person thought he said was Everett so the second time he went into Starbucks to do the Starbucks test they thought he said Evan so when we really thought about it we just didn't want him to have a name that would be difficult for him his entire life that he would have to pronounce and spell so that's kind of why Evan fell off the list so that all leads us to the final name and you might be surprised because it's not nearly as unique or unusual as some of the other choices but but we just love it it fits us it feels right and his name is Carter Gray Thomas we feel like it's a really solid name it's easy to say it's easy to pronounce it's easy to spell and even though it's in the top 25 names I believe nationally in California it's not in the top 100 so we don't feel like he's going to have a million other Carters in his class more so than anything else when we started using the name and referring to him as Carter it just clicked it felt right it felt natural and in terms of the middle name gray we just love that as a middle name and that pretty much would have been the middle name with any of the names that we chose we just think it's so cool at this point the name is locked in we love it I hope you guys like it too I don't think it's anything that's too controversial so yeah that's it Carter should be with us very soon my due date is January 10th so a little bit over 2 weeks from now stay posted on my social media specifically Instagram that's where I'm going to be announcing when he's born if you notice that there's a week or two here where I'm not posting a video on YouTube it's probably because he's been born actually now that I think about it it might be fun to have a little beding pool out there so let me know down below when you think he's going to be born the date and time and also his weight and I'm going to be looking down below all right so that's going to be it for this week I hope you enjoyed hearing the little story of how we came to his name and I really hope that you guys have a great holiday weekend and I will see you next week with a new video bye\n"