What's in a name...Part Deux

As we were posting last night, Nicholas sent a shout out from his bedroom for us to not forget how he got his name. So, we thought we'd toss in the history behind the names of our children.

When Karen was a little girl, she used to tell her mother Mary that when she grew up she was going to get married, move to North Carolina, and have a blond-haired boy named Nicholas. What everyone didn't know was that Karen was prophetic - she grew up, married, moved to North Carolina, and was expecting her first child. Before we knew the sex of the baby, we had already decided that if it was a boy, he would be named Nicholas. Karen decided to name him after his father, grandfather, and great grandfather on Nick's side, and we named him Nicholas Vedder Holland, IV, and I couldn't be more proud. When he was little, Nicholas used to call himself "Nicholas Vedder Holland the force."

Karen and I were expecting our second child in 2003, and we always thought that if we had a girl, we would name her Hannah (we both love that name). When we found out we were having a girl, it seemed that everyone we knew had a daughter named Hannah. So, we decided on Caroline, which is a family name on my side, and a tribute to my home state of North Carolina. Initially, we thought her middle name would be Ruth, but in the same week that we learned Karen was pregnant, a very dear friend of ours in Memphis was shot and killed. His name was George, and he was a Sheriff's Deputy delivering an arrest warrant. We were very close to his family–his wife Jessica and their two girls Taylor and Payton. We decided to honor George and his family, and made Caroline's middle name Georgia. It turns out that it serves a dual purpose, which is to honor George Selby and Karen's home state of Georgia (even though she was born in Virginia). Consequently, that's how Caroline Georgia Holland was named. When Caroline was little, she would would refer to herself as "Caroline ju-ja the first". Only later did she get "Georgia" and "Holland" in there, but she was always "the first". God threw away the mold after this one...

And by the way, Nicholas also wanted to make sure there were enough pictures of him on the blog...what do you think? Let us know if you need more of "the force".