the adams' blog

Admittedly, our kids have unusual names.  We get some weird looks from some people when they find out we have children named “America” and “Boston”.  We look like real patriots, for sure.  Even though we are patriotic, that’s not the entire reason why we gave our children their names.

America is a family name on Jessica’s side of the family.  Before Jessica and I were married, we found out Jessica had an aunt (from quite a while back) named America.  I don’t remember all the details about her, but we know she was affectionately nicknamed “Aunt Meck”, or just “Meck”.  As soon as Jessica told me about this name, I was immediately sold on it.  At that point we decided that we would name our little girl (if we ever had one) “America”.  So America’s name is a family named that Jessica and I decided on before we were married.  Little did we know that it would be more than nine years later before we’d get to put that name to use, but she is well worth the wait!  Her middle name is a combination of Elyse (just a name that we liked) and Mae which was my mother’s middle name.  We came up with Maelyse.  We hurt to know that Meck with never know her namesake…Granny Rita.

As for Boston, his name was chosen a little differently.  I’m a big baseball fan.  Actually, I’m a huge fan of sports, period, but baseball is probably my favorite.  I’m so much of a baseball nut that I actually spent weeks watching and keeping up with the Little League World Series.  Jessica wasn’t even pregant at this time, or at least we didn’t know it if she was.  As I was watching one of the games, I saw this kid named Boston Whitlow, and the TV announcers were discussing the origin of his name.  At first I thought “Man, his dad must be a bigger fan of the Red Sox than I am” but the announcers went on to say that his dad didn’t name him Boston because he’s a fan of the Red Sox, or anything else there.  He just thought it was a neat name, so he decided to name him Boston.

I remember thinking how cool that name really is, and if I had a son, I’d consider naming him Boston.  One of my dad’s brother’s did the geneology on our family and found out that we’re Irish (big surprise lol).  With this knowledge, and knowing that Boston has a pretty large population of Irish people, it seemed like the perfect name for my son.  I talked to Jessica about it, and she seemed apprehensive.  After a while, she relented and here we are with a son named Boston Ellis Adams.  Boston’s GiGi (aka Alice) had a hand in helping us choose between Elisha and Ellis (Jessica’s great-grandfather’s name).

So there you have it!  A little insight on where we come up with these names, just so you don’t think we’re a couple of nuts that name their kids these unusual names without reason.  Or maybe you still think we’re crazy for using these names, but at least you’re well informed.