The Name

Prior to ever getting pregnant with baby #3 while, on a date, Chris and I started talking about baby names.  Our waiters name was Brighton, I mentioned that as a name possibility and Chris agreed and our girl name was born.  However, this name would become something we would argue over for the next decade as my husband wanted it spelled Brighton and I wanted Bryton (it looks prettier and matches Payton); I ultimately won.  Chris loved the name so much that if he ever shared it with anyone he would make them promise to never use it, even if he never had another girl.

Over the years, we went on to have a Straton and a Boston but no Bryton.  One day someone mentioned if we ever had a girl we should name her Bryton Megan Wintle giving her the initials BMW.  This name grew on us, but I kept going back to the name Elizabeth.  Elizabeth is my grandmothers middle name on my moms side and  there is a Catherine Elizabeth in each generation except my mom stopped the tradition and named one of my sister Catherine Shea instead.

When I was pregnant with our oldest daughter I originally was going to name her Payton Elizabeth and last minute I gave her my middle name Jean instead as it just did not fit her.  Something similar happened with Bryton.  When she was born the nurses asked what her middle name was and I hesitated and said, Megan.  Then when Chris filled out her information he left the middle name blank and handed it to me to fill out.  I hesitated again and then ultimately wrote down Elizabeth and instantly felt at peace.

As we walked out of the hospital with a white box instead of our daughter Bryton Elizabeth my mind was suddenly flooded with the dream of baby Elizabeth and I almost collapsed as I looked at my husband and said, "we just had our baby in a box."  He responded with, "and you said she was perfectly fine, we won't find a cause for her death."  I sobbed the whole way home, harder than I have ever sobbed in my whole life.

Later I learned her full name means an illuminating place consecrated to God.  A fitting name for our angel illuminating our way back to our place in Heaven.

"ton"

When naming our kids Chris and I did not set out to have a system.  We simply went by what we liked.  Lucky for me I got to name Payton all by myself (since I did not meet Chris until she was 2).  I learned picking out names with someone else is oh so much more difficult!

Chris and I did not agree on a single baby name ever and once we were pregnant we still did not agree.  Chirs wanted the name Ashlee for a boy (after a football player but I informed him I did not think our son could get away with it) and I wanted Fletcher, but we could not figure out a middle name.  Then one night Chris woke me up and said, "how about the name Ashton?" and I said OK after all that would be much more fitting for our first son than Ashlee (no offense to any men named Ashlee).  The Christmas after we had Ashton, Chris and I were looking at all of our stockings and realized Payton and Ashton's names matched and decided maybe we only agree on names that end in "ton" and that is how we accidently started the pattern of picking our kids names.   So only from this point forward did we purposely only selected names ending in "ton."

After we had Bryton my dad made a comment that stuck with me.  He said something along the lines of "Each of the kids carries a part of Bryton in their name."  I don't know if he even remembers saying this, but he said they were each named after her, not her named after them.  This gave me chills and caused me to think that just maybe we were nudged along in the way we named our kids by them while they were all together on the other side.  Anyone that attended our sealing in the Salt Lake Temple might recall that the sealer stopped and addressed all of the angels in attendance.  I have always felt that included our future children rejoicing as their parents and oldest sister were sealed together for time and all eternity.