My Baby Boy's Name: A Crazy Story About How It Came To Be

I knew my first baby boy’s name long before I was pregnant with him. My boyfriend (now husband) and I established our mutual love for wine early on and decided to visit a few Napa wineries within our first couple months of dating. One of our stops was Cade Winery. At this point I was a few glasses in, and yes, even though sex was on my mind, the thought of getting pregnant and having children were very deep in the recesses of my consciousness (right after swallowing a chicken bone whole).

But something about the name of the winery just stood out to me. It sounded unique, cool, and strong -- the most perfect of baby boy names.

At that moment, I thought that if I ever had a baby boy, Cade would be his name. And no, I didn’t mention this to my boyfriend. Did I want him to spit out his wine and scamper out of my life? Hell no. 

Menu cover by a baby boy named Cade.

Fast forward many years later, I still hadn’t forgotten about Cade as one of the coolest baby boy names. My boyfriend was now my fiance at this point, so I was no longer nervous about bringing up the name topic. I casually mentioned it to him in between us spitting out toothpaste into the sink. I was well prepared for a battle, knowing that couples debate over baby girl and baby boy names all the time. To my surprise, he was equally excited about the name. Phew, heated debate averted. 

The topic of names didn’t come up again until a few more years later, after we got married.

We had been trying to conceive for a little over a year, which was longer than average. So we both got tested to make sure all of our gears were in working order (thank goodness, everything was fine).

All we needed to do was relax and let nature take its course. On our way back from a weekend up in Tahoe, we decided to visit one of our favorite restaurants. Each menu cover had drawings by different children in various schools. I looked at the cover of my menu. It was a drawing by a kid named Cade. Apparently, he went to Saint Anne’s school -- which I later learned from my Catholic mother is the saint Catholics pray to when they’re trying to conceive. Two days later, I got pregnant. Wuuut now?!

Needless to say, my baby boy’s name is Cade. 

Do you have any interesting stories about how you came up with your child’s name?