What's in the name?

So many people have been asking what the name Rayvena means. To be honest with you the name really is one we came up with ourselves...but there is a story to it. And it really has two meanings to us.

First. As a family we have been memorizing John 1. So Darrel and I have been talking a lot with the girls about John the Baptist, and as Darrel would say...John just isn't a good name for a girl. Well John was really a messenger of hope. He brought this great news about the Savior and really paved the way for him to come...he baptized Jesus! Well we thought of a Raven. In one place I read "Soaring through the sky in graceful, rag-winged flight, the raven is a messenger heralding transformation and change." How neat is that? Anyway. So we took the name Raven, and for those of you who know us really well Raven just wouldn't do it. So we started looking for endings that sounded good. We ended up using Rayvena. So she is our messenger of HOPE. Rayvena Hope.

Now you may wonder why we spell it Rayvena. Well let me tell you the second part of it all. My dad's middle name is Ray and so far all of our girls have middle names that are family names. We really loved Hope as the middle name and it's not a family name at all. So we spelled Rayvena with a y so that it would have Ray in it and she would have my dad's middle name in her name.

Ok. Now that I have just thrilled the pants off of you or really confused you with my story...it's time for me to take a quick nap! :)