I’ve heard it said that you have your whole life to compose your first album/book/play, but you only have a couple of years to produce your second. Simply put, your first work is a passion, your second work is actual work. I think we may have a better insight to this as we’ve been working/scrambling over the last couple of days to name our newest addition. Suffice it to say that it’s been a lot of work.

When we named Ruby we were pretty sure that Ruby was the name as we’d had that baby naming discussion many many times, including the first time we spent time together before we began dating. When we entered the hospital for Ruby’s birth we were armed with a boy name and a girl name (seeing how we didn’t know the gender) and so consequently when Henry was born it was a forgone conclusion that Henry would be his name as it had already been through the screening process.

Now baby #3 comes along and things got much more difficult, which is only fitting as this year has been an incredibly trying year.

In June when Becca’s dad unexpectedly passed away it was decided that we’d name our baby (if it was a boy) Roscoe Grant Campbell in honor of Becca’s dad. We wanted something tributary as we contemplated the sadness of not having Ross around to meet his grandson. Needless to say, he was a great man and we are still scarred by his loss.

Roscoe obviously isn’t Ross, but it’s close enough and it does have an individual quality that we like. Also, you can’t say Roscoe without saying Ross, right? So, right there it’s a win.

Grant comes from two sources that were important in Ross’ life. The first was from his uncle Arthur Grant who was a founder and science teacher at Dixie College. From what I’ve been told, Arthur was a father figure to Ross and inspired him greatly throughout his life.

The other Grant was Ross’ mission president who helped transform a Southern Utah redneck into a hard-working and committed scriptorian who would become a leader in his community in several different avenues.

We were both excited about this name as it meant something to us that we’d hope would translate into our boy knowing that he came from good stock. And then he was born …

Within a few minutes of his birth we both got cold feet about this name that we’d selected and that’s where the work began. We openly discussed  some of our other names: George (for St. George), Abram and other names we stumbled upon via iPhone apps and/or websites. Nothing seemed to feel right and with time running out we eventually came back to Roscoe. Ruby & Henry love it and hearing them call him that confirmed that this was the way to go.

So there you have it, the thinking behind our little boy’s name. Sure he’ll get a lot of Dukes of Hazzard references thrown his way (already has, really) but it’ll be something that he’ll have to deal with just as I had to deal with that Saturday Night Live character a few years ago.