When we were searching for baby names while we waited for Reed's arrival, it was a daunting task. We knew we wanted to use Jennings for the middle name, since it's my middle name, and was my great-grandfather's middle name as well. As the months went by, we settled on two options for a boy name: Trevor and Reed.
The name Trevor came to mind since Trevor Linden was playing for the Washington Capitals at that time. Handsome fella, nice name. Not knowing anyone named Trevor was also a bonus - I wanted to reduce the chances of him finding another kid with the same name in his classes. A solid name.
The name Reed came to us from my Mom. She'd been on a trip to New York City and had visited the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. With her future grandchild in mind, she looked over the name rolls of all the people who'd come through Ellis Island as they arrived in America. She came to "Reed". When she told me the name idea, she was so excited about it, but honestly the only Reed I knew was a character on the TV show "Sisters" played by Ashley Judd - her name was Reed, which was her mother's maiden name. We quickly realized, hey, Tod's grandmother on his Mom's side was a Reed! Ada Ruby Reed Holt. So after I got over feeling like it was a girl's name (that TV character was probably the only female Reed ever), knowing it was a family name for Tod made it extra special. We figured there wouldn't be any other Reeds around, since we'd never met any ourselves.
As it turns out, we couldn't have picked a more fitting name for Reed. He's tall and skinny, like a reed. He reads like his life depends on it. He's often asked us "How did you know that I would love to read when you picked my name?" and we tell him we had no idea, it just worked out that way. So far it hasn't worked out that he's the only Reed around (there's at least one other Reed in his school), but that's all right. We've got the best Reed in town.
Funny, I don't even recall what girl names we were thinking of!
