For all you inquiring minds...

No we are not actually going to name our son "Zippy Zap".

We DO have a name picked out for our baby boy. The name has just recently edged up on our list and has been at the top and it doesn't look like any other name is going to surpass it in the near future, but (disclaimer:) it could change at anytime if we feel impressed for one reason or another. We still have not chosen a middle name yet. We aren't holding back on telling people the name and we're not keeping it secret or anything like that - but we just simply haven't figured out the full name yet.

But the name for now that we have picked out for our son is "Preston ______ Thomas". (middle name unknown yet).

In case you want to know of where we came up with the name...

It was one night when Will and I were looking back at our family histories during FHE. My maiden name is Southworth, and my dad's family history comes from England. And the history goes back quite a ways, not quite as far as the Thomas ancestory but it does go back quite far. Anyway....we discovered that the very first Southworths came from a town in England called "Preston" in Lancershire. There is even a historic site there called the 'Southworth Manor' and they get about 60,000 visitors a year. I didn't know any of this.

So of course this all became very interesting to us and we kept researching more and more. We also learned that one of the early Southworths was killed for his religious beliefs (remember why people came to America - for religious freedom from Europe). Anyway he is buried at Westminster Abbey Church. And then one of his offsprings came to America on the 3rd ship over (the Queen Anne) and established himself in Plymouth Rock in 1637 I think it was. And thus my family comes from him. He helped establish one of the 1st churches there in Plymouth Rock. They were a religous family seeking religous freedom in the frontier of what would be America.

Anyway, we learned all of this because we thought it was odd that as far as we kept trying to go back, my Southworth family had lived in America for a very long time - whereas most of our other ancestors we can only go back 4 or 5 generations before finding their records in Scotland, England, Ireland, or Denmark, etc.

Anyway back to the name Preston. We also have had some other things come up with town, location, and things to do with it that have only further impressed upon our minds to name our son this. One of which, happened tonight - with the passing of dear Pres. Hinckley, we watched a video of his life and a good portion of it talked about his mission that he served in Preston, England and the good work he did there. And then in 1994, he went back and dedicated the Preston temple. Preston also holds one of the oldest branches of the church still operating today. It is the landing place of the 1st early missionaries of the church to England.

And also, as many different times we tried to come up with ways and reasons why the name Preston could be bad for a little kid - we just couldn't come up with any. It doesn't rhyme with anything terrible, you can't shorten it into a nasty nickname, and its just a good sturdy strong name for a boy.

Now as we have been trying to find a middle name for Preston, we have been turning to the Thomas family history. An interesting note, Will's grandma's maiden name is "England", and we have joked that wouldn't it be funny if we named him Preston England Thomas. But that is going a little too far on the Geographical side of things. So don't worry, we won't pull that one.

So anyway - just thought we'd share. Anyone from the Thomas side have any great family names that they can suggest for middle names - we're open to hear them! :)