We've been praying for a sweet little baby for several years now, but even before we started thinking about having children, I decided I would want to name my first son "John" after my maternal grandfather, John Roland Evans. My grandfather died of lung cancer when I was only three months old. I technically met him, but I have absolutely no memory of it. From stories I've heard from family members and spending time with my Uncle Ray and Uncle Chuck (two of his brothers), I've always felt I missed getting to know someone really special.
We decided to tell my maternal grandmother our decision before we even found out the gender, so that she would know how we wanted to honor her first husband, just in case the baby was a girl! So on August 15th, when we found out we were expecting a baby BOY, all we had to do was decide on a middle name.
There were lots of middle name suggestions, some of them good and some of them terrible. My husband loved the names "John Wayne" and "John Deere," so maybe you can see why it took two months to finally find a middle name that we both loved. I loved the name "John Clay," using Brandon's middle name, but unfortunately, one of his first cousin's baby boy is already named "John Clay Justus," so that name was out. I definitely wanted a one syllable middle name, but it seemed like all of the one syllable names were just not working. Paul, my brother's name and my dad's middle name, was a good option, but Brandon said all he could think about was the Pope, which I thought was as good thing! Luke and Mark are both good names, but family names on my sister's husband's side of the family, so they would be names they would want to consider using for a baby boy one day. I could go on and on and on, but that was the issue with almost every single one syllable boy name we could come up with!
Brandon threw out the name "John Charles" early on, but it wasn't my favorite. I honestly thought he was just wanting to use a name that sounded like old money. Albert, Walter, Bruce, Wayne, etc were some of his favorites. To me, they all sounded like old, rich men! After about a month, he came back to that name and told me that his maternal grandfather's name was Charles Wayne Cobb (hence part of his love for the John Wayne name). At that point, I told him I would seriously consider it, but I wanted to keep thinking about other options, too.
I never got to meet Brandon's PapPaw Cobb, but Brandon loved him. His PapPaw Cobb got him started in one of his greatest passions by giving him his very first guitar when he was 9 years old. Brandon says that his PapPaw Cobb loved the Lord and loved music, both of which he hopes to pass on to his own son.
I thought about it and used it in my head and we talked about it and the name grew on me. And after almost a month, I told him that would be a really cool name for our first son. He would be named after both of our maternal grandfathers.
So, barely two months before he's set to arrive, we finally have a name for our baby boy!
John Charles Justus
Here's a picture of our maternal grandfathers, who we hope to honor with this name.
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| John Evans (Naval Uniform) |
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| Charles Cobb (Air Force uniform) |
