I'd like to start out by saying that my mother's opinion means more to me than anyone else's in the entire world. More than my father's, more than my husband's, more than my best friends'. It doesn't matter if everyone and their mama likes the dress I have on, the decisions I make, the way I style my hair. If Beverly doesn't approve, I'm not happy.
Months ago, long before I was pregnant but after our April 2013 wedding, I was talking about baby names with my mother, just making random conversation. I went through the boy names I had loved as a teenager: "Marshall" and "Benton" among them. I even liked really unique names like "Brick" (a 'la Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) and "Nyle" (not a 'la One Direction). However, when mentioning these names to my husband at some point, he scrunched up his nose and nearly gagged the way he does at the sight of vomit. So, I of course had to rule these out, long before we found out we were expecting Baby Pace! Husband and wife must agree when naming their children, and I'm not the kind of person to try and push a name on him he doesn't like from the get-go.
So, during this conversation with my mom I said to her, "What about Vaught Pace for a boy?"
Apparently, I had been thinking of notable folks from The University of Mississippi at the time. I think maybe my mom had suggested "Eli" or "Manning" (her boss's son had named their new little boy Manning not long before), so Vaught just came to me automatically, and as the name rolled off my tongue, I instantly loved it, and I anxiously awaited the two seconds it took for my mother to respond to see if she felt the same.
"It's beautiful," I remember her saying. "I love it. Like Johnny Vaught, right?"
Yes, just like Johnny Vaught.
Born in Texas in 1909, John Howard Vaught served as head coach for the Ole Miss Rebel football team from 1947 to 1970 and again in 1973. Under his leadership, the Rebels claimed 6 Southeastern Conference (SEC) championships and 3 national football championships. His overall record was 190-61-12, and in 1982, Ole Miss had its stadium renamed Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, in honor of Coach Vaught and the notable Judge William Hemingway. He passed away in Oxford, MS, in 2006. In 2008, a statue honoring Coach Vaught was placed in front of the athletic training center at the school, just yards from Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. He is Ole Miss's most well-known and beloved football coach to this day.
Common questions and remarks we've received so far--the inspiration for this entry:
"So you're naming your son after a football stadium?"
If you want to look at it that way, sure, I guess so, but rather, we're naming him after a legendary football coach from the great state of Mississippi. (Read more about our love of footbal below). You can typically locate him in most lists and documentaries of the most famous football coaches in the history of American football, the only one to ever come out of Mississippi. Ideally, any Mississippian should take pride in this, from Rust College down to Southern Miss. That's solely my opinion though :)
"Isn't that a little too different?"
(Big sigh here). Honestly, not to us. Baby names have become extremely intriguing over the last several years: Beckett, Brayleigh (various spellings for that one), Braxton, Paxton, Grayson, Braylen, Jaxon, Kingsley, Kingston, Grover, Prescott, Stellan, the list just goes on and on. I actually just glanced at 4 or 5 different lists from Google searches to compile these names. In my opinion, there is a fine line between uniqueness and just plain weirdness, and also in my opinion, about half of the names listed above would classify under my own personal list of "strange." But here's what I remind myself: If it's not my baby, it's not my name to choose. Yes, Vaught is different. But not so different that we think it's strange, and shouldn't mom and dad's opinions be the only two that matter? The second I mentioned it to my husband (again, long before Baby P came along), he fell in love. "That's it," he'd said.
I vaguely remember how disgusted I was when my sister announced my niece's name: Cherish. I literally gagged. I thought it was the dumbest name in the world. I swore I would come up with my own nickname for her and never actually call her Cherish. (It's only now that I realize how selfish I was being and how hurtful it probably was to my older sister). Today, that curly-headed little girl will be 6 years old on July 4th, and there is no better name for her than Cherish.... I hope you caught where I went with that.
"People will think his name is Vault."
Haha, of course. I already get that. "Vault? As in a bank vault?" and then I have to spell it out for them. You pronounce it "vawt," but that's a little too alternative for me. In my opinion, if you name your child something authentic, you are going to be correcting people all of his childhood life. I have a cousin named Audrey Anna. Simple. Audrey and Anna. As simple (and pretty) as it sounds, there are still those who read her name and call her "Aidry Anna," "Ordrey Anna," and my personal favorite, "Andrianna." I've kind of simplified everything and have begun calling her "Audrana" in the past few years. I'm really not disrespecting her full name; I just talk so fast, I realized that's how it comes out!
Anyway, like I said, you realize what you're doing by taking on such a unique name. Yes, I will be correcting people, and so will he, but after that first time, it'll be easy. I know his name is different and unique, but I'm so in love with it, I don't mind correcting people. I'm an English teacher, so I'm used to it anyway :)
One last thing to note...
Hotty Toddy
Together, my husband and I are two of the biggest eggheads you might ever meet. We are football nuts, and yes, we are extremely passionate Ole Miss fans. I am a product of the flagship school of the state of Mississippi, and my husband earned some college credit there as well. We didn't meet at Ole Miss, but it is part of what brought us together and keeps us together. We jokingly say that we don't agree on everything, but we agree on the most important thing: Ole Miss football. It's true, and maybe it's a bit extreme to some people. But unless you're one of us, you cannot understand it. An important thing I feel I should note here is that Ole Miss is truly a part of who we are. We're not "committee fans," as my dear husband says. And trust me, Ole Miss does have plenty of those, like every other big name school. We don't wear red and blue t-shirts just for the heck of it and cheer for the Rebels when they win. We don't go to games sparingly and then leave the stadium when the team is down 66-31 (Texas Longhorns 2012--we came back strong in 2013 though). We don't badmouth our team when the quarterback trips into the endzone and fumbles the ball, costing us our season rivalry game, and we don't dwell on one sorry loss in battle while we're winning the war (all time Egg Bowl record: 61-43-6 OOOOOOLE MISS). Between the two of us, we can name every player on the team and every coach, his hometown, a few stats, and maybe a few random things about him. We are loyal season ticket holders, despite the fact that we have tons of others things we could put
But tell me, what's in a name??
Vaught Charles Pace is the most beautiful, most perfect name in the entire world. I honestly cannot wait to say "Hello, Baby Vaught," the second I see his newly born face. I look forward to saying "Come here, Vaught," when he's crawling or walking, or "Vaught Charles!" when he is scolded. I'm in love with him, his name, everything about him. When he's older, he'll ask how we came up with it. Accustomed to going to Ole Miss football games with his mom and dad, we'll tell him he's named after a good man who coached the Rebels a long time ago. If he wants to be proud of that, that's fine. It's not something to be proud of, rather it's just the name that felt right to his mom and dad. He might have friends named "Davis Wade," or "Jordan," or "Neyland," or "Noble," or "Bryant," or "Denny!" We'll smile and know that those moms and dads have teams and schools that are just as prominent parts of their hearts as Ole Miss is to ours. A love that strong and that loyal (and yes, a little crazy) is a love Eric and I can always understand and appreciate, even if it's for a team we aren't particularly fond of. If you've made it all the way here, thank you, and I'm sorry. I definitely didn't mean to get on my soapbox if it seems like I've done so. Honestly, I spent hours, days even, on this post because I've been thrown flack once or twice over our name for our son, and it's something I feel so much better about getting out there. I hope this sheds a little more light on who I am and who we are as a married couple and now, as parents. It was also important to me that I document his namesake in some way, so I'm going to save this and show it to him many, many years from now!
We're so excited to be welcoming Vaught Pace in September... just in time for Ole Miss football.
No comments:
Post a Comment