Show & Tell Tuesday's: Names!

I'm linking up with Andrea again today for Show & Tell Tuesdays! 

Today we are talking about how you named your kids, pets, or how you got your name! 

Because it's just me & the hubby for now, I thought I'd talk about my name & some of our top names for our future little ones! I absolutely love talking baby names and it's funny how much Ty gets into it too. Some of my favorite texts from him are the ones where he shares a new name with me on a random Tuesday when we weren't talking about baby names. It's cute to see guys thinking about baby names, am I right? 

So first, let's start with me! Funny that this week we are talking about names because I JUST had a fit to Ty about the people at our pizza place never getting my name right. Ty wondered why it bothered me so much to which I replied that my name has always been butchered. And it's super annoying.

Anyways, my name (before I got married) was Kathleen Elizabeth Alfano. My daddy named me and my name actually kind of changed right before I was born. They had my name picked out but were going to call me "Katie" after my Meme. For some reason on the way to the hospital my dad told my mom that he wanted me to be called Kathleen and not Katie...well ok then! I'm not sure where they got Elizabeth from but I've always loved it. I do however remember thinking in elementary school that there was no way I'd ever learn how to spell my whole name. That's a lot of letters!!!!! Luckily, I finally learned. :) 

Here's me and my daddy on my wedding day! 

And here are my adorable parents! 

So am I the only woman who thinks it's super weird that when you get married it's like your middle name never exsisted?? I adore my middle name and I feel so weird never acknowledging it anymore. It's like I've abandoned my middle name. It actually makes me sad. Ha! Surely I'm not the only one who has felt this way? 

Or maybe I'm just weird.

Anyways, I love how my name is not that common and I rarely meet anyone with the same name. I also get a lot of "oh that's a pretty name" and it is! However, it's too close to Katherine and I've been called Katherine my entire life. And now as a first grade teacher who teaches phonics, it really makes no sense. I always tell kids not to read the first few letters but the whole word and that's what I always want to tell people who say Katherine - umm, I'm sorry, do you see Ernie at the end of my name??? NO! 

The pizza place I talked about earlier always calls me Kathlin - yet when I correct them (every time), they must not change it in the computer because they continue to say Kathlin. Oh my. Biggest pet peeve ever. 

My favorite spellings of my name consist of Kathline, Kathlene, Kathlin, Kathlen, & Cathleen. The Starbucks chick always rocks at the misspellings too. 

So, what has this taught me? I will name my kid something that hopefully will never be misunderstood as another name. Ty and I also want to use the most common spelling of whatever name we pick out and not mix up letters or anything. I think it's super cute when people do that, I just have lived it for too long and I don't want to do it with my kids names. 

So now for our top baby names!!! Ty is very particular about boy names - they need to be one syllable! Don't ask me why...Ha! We only have 1 boy name with 2 syllables. 

I starred my favorites on both lists! 

For boys:

Garrett

Clay

Nate

*Rhett

Tripp

Colt

Wade

Tate

Grant 

For boy middle names I would love to use my dads middle name (Michael) and/or Ty's dad's name (William)! 

For Girls: (I'm all about some boy names for girls - yes I know, they may be mistaken for girls on the first day of school...ok ok, carry on)

*Reese

Olivia

Andi

Blake (my uncle stu's middle name - he passed away in 2008)

Macy

Our first girl's middle name will be Elizabeth! I have to use it, then I won't feel so bad abandoning it when I got married...(insert funny face emoji)

So what names do you like?? Link up with Andrea!