Where Did the Names Come from?

Greetings:
I've been asked this so many times, and because I think it is a decent story, I thought I would share how we came up with the names for our boys.  Some people are under the impression it is hard to come up with 6 different boy names...but we both found it pretty interesting and not as difficult as you'd think.

To start...and I say this to reflect the generosity and trust of my beautiful wife...she let me pick all the names.  No really...she did!!  It came as a result of a conversation and she basically said, "If I get pregnant this month...I'll let you pick the name." (emphasis on the singular name!).  Oops!!  But true to her word, she not only let me pick our oldest boy's name...but all of them.

We'd discussed names during our previous pregnancy even though it didn't get too far.  So we had some general ideas for our top choices.  With the knowledge of triplets...it just made our discussions more broad and open to different ideas.  Before knowing the sexes of the babies we had some basic guidelines.  For the boys it was simply that we wanted "interesting" (a very subjective word) Bible names that were less common than some of the traditional names.  Over time then, we narrowed our list to two.  I didn't think we'd need more than two boy names.  When we found out we were having three boys...we only needed to come up with one more name because Caleb and Gideon were our top two very early on.  The nice thing about naming Triplets is that you don't have to choose between your favorites.  If you come up with a name you like...there is a good chance you can find a way to fit it in somehow!

So how did we come up with the specific names?

I've liked the name Caleb for a long time.  It is a little more common than Gideon and Ezra...but Autumn liked it enough that we allowed for a bit more commonality.  Another common thread through our boys names is we had to like the Bible story associated with them.  We want to be able to use those stories as illustrations about the kind of relationship and faith in God we want our boys to have.  Caleb trusted God to deliver the land of Canaan to the Israelites..and God rewarded him for his faith.  I also liked the fact I could call Caleb "CK".  I am a Superman fan and if you didn't know...CK is a nickname sometimes given to Clark Kent by his friends.  I was sold.  FYI...Autumn isn't as thrilled about the CK reference but she lets me have my fun!!  :-)  As for his middle name, Matthew...that comes from my side of the family.  My brothers and I all share the middle name Matthew and so do a few of my cousins on that side.  I just felt it was appropriate and fitting to continue that tradition for the Kaldahl family and Matthew sounded good with Caleb.  End of story...that one we had for a llloonngg time.

Gideon was another name we both liked right away.  Gideon was a man who didn't trust in his own abilities but ultimately trusted in God to give him and the Israelites a great victory.  But God made it clear that it was through HIS actions...not Gideon's or the Israelites that made it so.  His middle name, Crosby, comes from the band Crosby, Stills, and Nash.  While we like CS&N, we liked the name more.  If we didn't have the Biblical names as a standard, Crosby would have been one of our first name choices.  Still...we liked the name...we like the band...and we like the genre of Classic Rock...influenced in part by Granddaddy Greg (Autumn's dad).  So it made a nice fit.

Ezra's name was a bit longer in the making.  We probably didn't settle on this until October.  This is in part because we had picked out another name.  The name was nice..but over time, the story in the Bible didn't inspire me as much as Ezra's faithfulness in rebuilding the temple for God.  There is no grand story about how we came up with it.  It started with me laying in bed one night pondering names..and for some reason it just popped into my head.  I didn't think Autumn would like it, but when I mentioned it to her, she said she'd thought about that previously herself.  Up until he was born I was always nervous about it, but thankfully people have been really supportive about it.  Ezra's middle name, Glenn, is in memory of Autumn's dear Grandma Gertie who passed away in October.  I had originally sworn I would not name our kids after anyone because I worry about hurt feelings.  In fact..the first time I'd heard the idea I barely considered it.  But within days of her funeral the name "Ezra Glenn" just rolled in my head over and over again and I just knew it was the right thing to do.  Not only for Autumn and Gertie...but for all of Autumn's family who had reached out so kindly to me and who I knew would be such a great part of our boys' lives.  PLus...not only would Ezra have a Bible story to hear...but we could tell him and the other two about his Great-Grandma Gertie whose prayers played a huge part in them coming to being.

Lastly...when trying to arrange the order for who gets what name...I noticed the initials of the boys matched pretty well.  The middle initial of the younger brother matches the first initial of his older brother (obviously this doesn't apply to Caleb).  It is a pretty small detail, but I remember how cool it was when my younger brothers (who are twins) realized they could split their names in half with each taking half of the other name...and when put together they'd still have their name (GAry & RYan).  It seemed cool to have that kind of link back then...so I figured at least some link between their initials would be neat too....and thus the names and birth order for Caleb, Gideon, and Ezra was set.