Southern Naming Conventions

I have gotten a few questions from folks we haven't talked to in a while about our oldest son's name....so here's the story.

We moved to Alabama a year and a half ago and Addison and I quickly got involved with some mom's groups and preschool activities in town. As we met child after child, it quickly became evident that many, many kids here are called by both their first and middle names. Anna Claire, Sarah Kate, Anna Grace, Lydia Grace, Mary Kelly, Katie Margaret, John Martin, and on and on it goes. So, as you can imagine, it wasn't long before Addison started asking to be called by "all his names". And when he said "all my names", he meant all of them, including his last name, which I was not going to do (Addison Marshall Belk is too long to say AND I would sound ridiculous in the grocery store! :).

Honestly, the two names request wasn't really a battle that was worth fighting as far as I was concerned (we gave both of the kids first and middle names that we liked alot), so we agreed to a compromise. Mom and Dad would to try to remember to call him "Addison Marshall", all the while thinking this was just a phase that would eventually pass. Well, "eventually" never came. We've been calling him "Addison Marshall" for almost a year now and he hasn't really gotten tired of it. To complicate things further, Baby Jack arrived and started calling him something that sounds kind of like "Mar-Mar", so William and I eventually started calling him Marshall more often. Now even Granny has started calling him Marshall sometimes and last week at VBS, when we couldn't fit "Addison Marshall" on the nametag, I asked him what he wanted me to write and he said, "Just Marshall".

I am not really sure how this story ends, probably only time will tell, but for the meantime, in our blog, as in our real lives, we will go back and forth between all his names, just to keep you on your toes.

I am grateful his middle name isn't Edgar.