I was going through my old beat up sermon notebook, transferring it to my new shiny Sermon/Prayer Requests Journal, and I found a sermon from a month or so ago that got me thinking.

I went to a church that is in the process of changing names. The sermon was on the importance God places on names, his own and other people's. I took his challenge and used my concordance to look up the word name. It's in there a lot!

The point of his sermon was that our names are not an accident. Even if our parents only chose them for the sound, God has given them special meaning unique to each of us. I'm not sure what I think about a divine mandate about my name, but then I remembered how in Perelandra Ransom's name was chosen before ransom was a word. Before his ancestors morphed their name from Ranolf's son. Before ransom mean to act as the redemption for someone else. (BTW, did anyone else go back and catch in Out of the Silent Planet that Lewis says the name Ransom is a pseudonym? Nitpick!)

So I bought a baby names book and looked mine up.

Rachel: (Hebrew) Ewe, Lamb of God, Innocent.
LeAnn (Either a combination of Leah and Hannah, or Lee and Hannah)
Leah: (Hebrew) Weary.
Lee: (Old English) Meadow
Hannah: (Hebrew) Full of Grace, Mercy, and Prayer.

I kind of like going with Leah over Lee, because then I have an all-biblical, Jewish women of faith sort of name....But then, it is a lot to live up to!

(Over at Marla's Musings she has a link to name origins and meanings...Go find your own names)