The Legend of OUR Johnny Football

Many people have been asking us about Johnny's name. Many people have been assuming that we were honoring this person with our name decision...

Johnny "Football" Manziel

Now I admit (proudly and happily...especially this season) that we are pretty big Aggie fans. We have both been pretty much from birth. However, I don't think I would ever name a child after an athlete. We are proud to have Johnny Football as part of the Aggie family and think it is ironic that he has risen to fame at the same time we had our Johnny.

Our Johnny was actually named after this person...

No...not Grandma! Grandpa!!!

Matt pretty much told me whenever we got married that if we ever had a son, he would be named after his grandfather. I agreed thinking that Matt would forget at some point as I personally feel the name John is a little...blah. I find it honorable and nice that Matt wanted to pay tribute to his grandfather though. I tried to convince Matt of other names, but he dug his heels in. We were a little worried about naming Raptor this when we found out about his diagnosis, not knowing if it was "ok" to name our child after Grandpa (if it was a boy). Grandpa was thrilled and delighted that we wanted to name anybody after him. I was still resistant to the name until I looked up the meaning...John means "God is gracious". I thought it would lend itself to good testimony and a good reminder that throughout it all God shows us grace, even when we don't feel it. Coincidently, Grandpa's middle name is Madison which means "Son of Matthew"...we couldn't pass that one up. Many people have commented on how prestigious his name sounds...I agree...it is a bit too prestigious for such a little guy. Which then transformed to finding a nickname...Grandpa was called Johnny as a boy and I liked the idea of calling our potential son Johnny. And thank goodness it was a boy because we were still debating girl names while I was in labor! 

So there you are...sorry to disappoint anyone who thought we were "those" people who would name their kid after a "celebrity". Of course we aren't helping anything by calling our boy Johnny "Football"...or by taking pictures like this...

And we are definitely not helping by making onesies like this...