What's in a name?

In talking to Holly tonight, I was reflecting on the origins of our names. Dad was named William after a long line of Williams in the George family. His middle name, Lea, was a family name on his dad's side of the family. Rick also has Lea as his middle name. Mom's name was a point of contention with her parents. Grandpa insisted on naming her Evelyn. Grandma finally relented saying, "Fine, we'll name her Evelyn, but we'll call her Gail." Dad originally wanted to name me Wenke (venka) Lisa after a little girl he met on his mission to Norway. Mom was sure that people would accidentally call me "Winky" so she vetoed it. They kept Lisa as my middle name, but they said they picked Karen just because it was a name they liked. Mom said Kathy's name was chosen because they liked the name and they chose her particular spelling (Kathryn) because they liked it better. Bill was named after Grandpa George. This happened before we discovered that Grandpa's name was Jesse William and not William Jesse (he was always called Bill). Grandma George also went by her middle name - something we didn't know until she went on her mission later in life. Rick got Dad's middle name. I never heard why they chose the name "Rick," but I once met one of Dad's best friends from high school and his name was Rick or Richard. Sharon was named after Dad's youngest sister who had died in a car accident when I was a baby. Her middle name, Laura comes from Grandma George's side of the family - Laura Zulieme Weakley. Emerson's dad's family has a tradition of naming kids with the initials EDT. Emerson was actually Emerson Daniel Tsosie, Jr. at birth, but later changed his last name to his mom's maiden name after his parents divorced. His siblings followed suit. Our kids have matching initials (but not EDT). Dwayne is named after Emerson's best friend, Duane Milford, who was killed by a drunk driver. We used a spelling we liked better. His middle name, Christopher, was chosen so he had a more common name to use if he didn't like his first name. When searching for names for Dexter, Emerson mentioned he wanted one that sounded athletic. I worked for a press clipping company at the time and saw the name Dexter a lot on the sports pages. Sounded good to me and it started with a "D." For the middle name, Emerson, his brother (Gene), and I were having dinner together one night and trying to come up with a name beginning with "C" that would go with Dexter. The result was Cornelius, after a guy Emerson played football with in high school. That guy went by "Corny." It took me a long time to not laugh when saying the name Cornelius, and Dwayne used to say it in the cutest messed-up way as a toddler. Dwayne has had to get used to people forever spelling his name wrong (Duane, Duwayne, Dewayne, etc.) and Dexter endured a lot of "Dexter's Laboratory" references. I always wanted a more exotic name and used to resent that Bill, Rick, and Kathy had a variety of options on what to do with their names. I have to admit that it was tough to let Billy and Ricky grow up and let go of the "y" at the ends of their names. Kathy has good stories to go with her kids' names, but she should be the one to tell...