And He Shall be Called

Heather and I have been searching for the perfect name for our son. It's been difficult to find one with a meaning we like and a sound we enjoy. We've joked about names like Luke Warm, or Intel Inside, and the like. While we did briefly consider Luke or Lucas, we eventually decided against them.

Before we divulge our final answer, we'd like to share a few other names we've found along the way.

Abimelech--"My father is king." I personally liked this one a lot, but we eventually decided it was a bit too pride-inducing in me.

Benoni--"Son of my sorrow." We considered this one due to Heather's hormone-induced tears, but, like Jacob, decided not to curse our son. We didn't want to name him Benjamin either, though.

Jabez--"Borne in pain; sorrow." Similar to Benoni, but with pop culture behind it! So, double no.

Lehi--"Jawbone." 'Nough said.

So, you ready? Have we dragged it on long enough? Shall we say, "Come back tomorrow, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel."?

Alright, fine. I'll tell you now. Now, you can't laugh, okay? 'Cause we're serious about this name. Sure, it's unusual, but that's one of the reasons we liked it. If you don't like it, send any critical emails to I'mNotListening.com.

Without any further ado (though thinking about it, that PHRASE is 'further ado'!), our son's name is--

You ready?

BENIAH MARK!!!

Put together, this means "God has Established" this "Mighty Warrior."

Mark is my middle name, and has an excellent meaning. I'm sure it needs little introduction to all of you.

But, I know what you're REALLY thinking. (Yes, I AM a precognitive psychic. Deal with it.) You're thinking, "Beniah? Where'd they pull up that name?" Well, I'm glad you asked yourself that. In historical times, there was a man named David. He was a Jewish king, adept at war. He had many mighty men that fought with him. One of them was Benaiah. Here are some references:

2 Samuel 8:18
2 Samuel 20:23
2 Samuel 23:20-23, 30
1 Kings 1

To sum up these passages, he was one of the mightiest warriors in David's army. David obviously trusted him greatly, as evidenced by the end of 2 Samuel 23:23--"David put him in charge of his bodyguard."

When Adonijah rebelled against David, he didn't even invite Benaiah to join him. (1 Kings 1:10). This may have been because of a personal slight, but I think it had to do with Benaiah's loyalty to David.

In regards to the change in spelling (from Benaiah to Beniah), when we first chose the name, we were pronouncing it Ben-I-ah, not Ben-A-ah (think Isaiah, but with Ben). Though we later discovered our mistake, we decided to stick with our initial pronunciation. We changed the spelling because, as Heather so aptly put it, "Silent letters are stupid, because they're wastes of perfectly good letters."

Wow. Talk about text-heavy! Here're a few pics for those of you with short attention spans.