All In a Name (Month 3)

Picking a name for a kid can be quite difficult.  For my wife and I it was one of the easiest things we have done in regards to our kid.  See both of us had experienced the name even before we met each other.  Our daughter's name is Karis (not Kari) and contrary to popular belief we did not use a combination of our names.  

First, my wife and I are Christians (so take that for what it's worth).  We are not crazy, we don't picket but we do love Jesus and love to serve others.  So when we were dating I was reading heavily in the book of Ephesus ( a letter to a bunch of church of people who needed to get their act together--sound familiar?)  The topic of grace comes up frequently in that book.  I have always resonated with Ephesians 2:1-10 and teach it quite frequently in my work.  A verse that I decided to remind myself was Eph. 2:8--"For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, this is not of yourself rather the gift of God."  Essentially this verse says that God loves you, He saves you, You're not hot stuff, You didn't earn it rather He gives it as a gift.  The Greek word for grace is charis or the phonetic spelling is karis.  It also where we get our word charismatic.  

Second, my wife always wanted to name a daighter she would some day have Karis, but this name became reality when Katie and I were working with a group of kids.  We met a girl named Karis and she was an energetic, sweet girl and for the first time we both talked about how cool a name that was for a girl.  

Once my wife and I both decided that we wanted to have children of our own the name Karis was the first on our list for a girls name.  We wanted our daughter to represent what God has done in her parent's lives but also so that she could explain using her own name what God has done for all people.  Our first obstacle with it though was to go with the phonetic spelling because we knew if we went with charis all she would hear is Chair-is from both teachers and students.  As a kid whose teachers always got his last name wrong when they called it out: Luewego?  Lego? Luigi? I understood the cringe feeling or the feeling of being really annoyed by the incorrect telling of your name that contained only four letters (and something she may undoubtly endure).  That is why we went with the phonetic spelling. 

That my friends is how we came up with our daughters name.

The End~