Names are incredibly important. Throughout Biblical history we see God giving new names to people over and over again. The names given speak something about that person, something about what God is calling them to accomplish, or what He is speaking into their life. The meaning behind a name can go easily unnoticed. When you think about the power behind our words and what we speak into our lives, can you imagine the power a name holds? A name is something you are called and referred to on a daily basis, not just once a day, or twice a day, but multiple times during the day. That means the meaning behind that name is what is being spoken over you multiple times throughout your day.

This concept was an incredibly important one for my husband and I to keep in mind when naming our children. Before deciding on Jase’s name, I remember looking up the meaning behind my husband’s and my name and being astounded at how much it described who we are as people. It described our personality, little things within us that we didn’t even realize were there. It described passions we had. It described the heart behind who we were in ways that really surprised us.

In discovering this, it became that much more important to not just choose a name for our children that we loved the sound of, but a name with a meaning behind it that we wanted to speak over our children’s lives. There would be names we would come across that we really liked, but then when we dug into the meaning, we didn’t feel like it was the right one. It definitely made it a lot harder to find a name for our child, but we knew that God was guiding us on the perfect name for our child.

Contrary to popular belief, we did not hear Jase’s name on the popular show Duck Dynasty, we actually had never seen the show. I had an app that we downloaded on my phone that we would go through and favorite names that stood out to us. I had gone through and added a few to my favorites when Chad was at work, and when he later went back to look he came across Jase and asked me why I hadn’t brought that one up yet. I told him I wasn’t entirely sure about it yet, but just in case was sure to favorite it. Up to this point, Chad had been extremely picky with finding a boys name, this was the first he had finally thought a possibility. He decided that Christopher flowed well as a middle name, and just dwelt on it for awhile. After a few days we both really fell in love with the name and it’s meaning and knew it was the perfect name for our little man. I couldn’t imagine him as anyone else. I can’t wait to see the name come to life before our eyes in his personality and character.

We came across Elyse in an entirely different way. My grandmother passed away shortly after Chad and I were married and she was never able to meet Chad. Due to a lot of family history, I don’t have much extended family a part of my life, this grandmother, my dad’s mom, was the only steady grandmother I had my entire life. I was extremely close to her. I have so many fond memories with her, it was so hard to know she would never meet Chad or my future children. So I asked Chad if we could use her name in one of our daughter’s names one day, and he sweetly agreed. My grandmother is from Greece so she has a very long Greek name that I don’t even know completely… But she went by Ann. When we looked up the meaning of Ann, I knew it was perfect, so we held on to it until we found a middle name we loved with it. One day in conversation, we tossed around Elyse, and when I looked up the meaning I loved it. When paired with Ann, we knew it was the perfect name. I look forward to being able to speak it over her, and to see the way it plays out in her life as well.

Look up your name, what does it mean? Can you see any of your name’s meaning in your life?