I’m often asked this question, often enough that I’m writing about it. I have three boys. And about 10 different names. When I bump into other Mom’s and they want to ask how my kids are doing, they say ‘How’s the middle doing?’ And I smile and say ‘Really good’. And they often to refer to him as the middle, or the youngest as the baby, because no one gets their names right. It always makes me smile, but here it is.

Liam. Liam is my first baby. Yes, changed my life. But don’t all first borns? Liam came as a bit of a surprise. I had just found out I was pregnant, and my sister and her hubby were coming down to party for the weekend. I wasn’t ready to spill the news yet, so we were keeping it hush hush. Before they arrived, my husband and I were talking about names. I’ve always loved the name Liam and told him that’s the name. He sarcastically replied ‘yeah yeah’ thinking he would pick.

Our argument was put on hold while my sister arrived. We decided to enjoy a night out downtown and we ended up at a place that had two sections; The main floor and a rooftop type club. Generally you would enter the main, get a ticket number with your name and be waitlisted for the upstairs. We get in, take a number and enjoy our time on the main floor. As we’re having a good time, the number on the screen was 82 and our ticket number was 172, meaning we were never getting up there. So my sister rips up the ticket and says ‘let’s just party here’. A little later we’re sitting on a table and there’s a ripped up ticket on there. Just for fun, my brother in law decides to put it together. We do, and sure enough it’s the next number up. And what name is on the ticket? Liam. So for the rest of the night, we all had to pretend my brother in law was Liam. The entire night we’re chanting ‘Liam Liam Liam’.

And that’s how Liam got his name because of course we had to choose that name after that. But where’s the confusion? You’ll often hear us call him Oday. Oday is his middle name, so he goes by both. My first son is Liam Oday. Pretty simple right?

Roomie. He’s my second born. This story will clear up a lot of things. He goes by Roomie. However when you check his name on his hockey roster, you see Laiden. What’s his real name? Laiden Aram. I’ve always been in love with the name Laiden, so we chose that. Aram is an old traditional name that I also love. So easy, first name and middle name are set. And then he’s born. And Liam was not very fond of the idea of having someone else in the house. After explaining in simple terms he’s now part of the family, Liam says ‘Oh so he’s my new roomie?’ as in roommate. Exactly! So Liam nicknamed him Roomie and it stuck. Stuck so well, that he still goes by Roomie today. Very few people know his real name is Laiden. And as good parents, we should probably let him know his real name. But breaking into preschool was a struggle. After his first week of school, his teacher called me and asked for a conversation. She was worried about his hearing and lack of attention. She told me he’s never once responded to his name and I call Laiden about 10 times an hour. I told her to call him Roomie. She asked how I spell it, I said however you’d like, it’s made up. 1 week later she called me and told me what a sweetheart Roomie is.

So that’s Roomie’s story. My Dad called me last week and asked me how we legally spell Roomie. I said ‘L-A-I-D-E-N’. He’s like whose that? I’m like it’s Roomie’s real name! (insert hand over eyes emoji here)

Last but not least, Yezzy. Baby Yezzy is my third and as cute as they come. After he was born we actually had no name. Considering we have like 10 names for my other two, we had no name for this new babe. Then my sister in law calls me. Yazin, name him Yazin. So we did. Now we need a middle name. Her boys are named Leo and Andre. So we combined Leo and Andre and named him Leandro. Sure enough that confused everyone. At every doctors appointment we were called ‘Leonardo next please’ (shrug). Until the other two boys are like ‘It’s Leandro, but you can just call him Yezzy’. And that’s what we did, Yezzy. Not sure how we’ll enter preschool, but we love it.

This article should stop here, but I’m going to keep going. I’ve always wanted four kids. Last year I really pushed the idea. I told hubby we would have another boy, we’ll name him Laith and life will be perfect. Simple name, still in L theme (even though we don’t use the L’s). A few months after I had a work trip out of the country. I was at a food show where I met hundreds of people and walked by thousands of people. There was a young man who talked to me about a coffee he was introducing. Date seed coffee with no caffeine and only health benefits. Date seed? How creative. That being said, I wished him best of luck and we parted ways. He’s like hang on to my card. I told him there’s no need I live too far. He insisted. He hands me his card and sure enough his name is Laith. There it is, a name I’ve never heard and definitely have never seen before. I said ‘I’m sorry, what’s your name?’ Because I was so taken back. He said with a smile ‘Laith, I know it’s not that common but that’s my name. It’s like Faith with an L’. I smiled and we parted ways.

So one day I hope to add on to this story, but as for now, I am blessed to have 3 beautiful boys. Liam, Laiden and Leandro….Oday, Roomie and Yezzy.

To be continued…