We named our son Nathaniel. This is a slightly less common version of the list of names that borrow from the Hebrew word for 'gift', the most common being Nathan. The 'el' a the end of Nathaniel means 'God' in Hebrew, so his full name means 'Gift from God'. I thought that was meaningful enough to warrant the longer variant, and was the driving force behind choosing Nathaniel over Nathan.
The truth is that we never call him Nathan or Nathaniel -- it's always Natey, Nater or Nate, or anything that rhymes with that (Ralphy Nater, Nater-Baiter, etc). I'm sure he'll use a shorter form all his life, similar to how his mom is never called Cynthia or his dad Thomas.
It felt awkward applying names to both of our kid's. Giving a new baby a name seems like an arbitrary label at first, but as that little individual's personality fills in what the name means, it all starts to make sense. I'm sure if we called him Paxton, as we almost did, that name would have come to mean everything Nate has (but, lets just say that I'm glad we chose like we did). With the exception of really bad names (Hugh Jass, Justin Sane, etc), you really can't go wrong.
I feel like I know Nate now, or am at least getting to know him. His name isn't an arbitrary label anymore, because now it's the little guy who gets excited when he sees me and does whatever he's doing faster as soon I yell for him to stop.
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