What's in a name?

Us newby parentals are continuing to settle in to our schedule of no sleep, few meals, lack of showering, new found interest in daytime and late night TV, and almost no time outside of the house -- and it's worth every second of it! Holden is such a perfect little boy, and he's been doing really well settling in after his own traumatic birth experience (we always have to remember what the baby goes through during that process, worsened by that darn vacuum pump ... poor little fella).

So this brings me to one of the most common questions we've been getting: Why did you name him Holden? As I often do in my work as a museum educator, I'm going to leave that question out there and explore some responses people have had to this name (very constructivist of me, eh?).

Holden -- pronounced HOHL-den

1) Is it a family name?
Nope, or at least not that we know of. And I'm not sure why everyone assumes that your children's names have to be from family names.

2) Is he named after 1950s Academy-Award-winning actor William Holden?
Wrong again. In fact, Bryna and I had never heard of him until people started asking. However, we're very OK with any associations between our son and Hollywood's "Golden Boy" (also played Joe Gillis in the original Sunset Boulevard). For one thing, he was quite the dashing young man, and apparently quite the actor, too. And he's was born just across the river from us in O'Fallon, Illinois (fancy that). However, his career ended in tragic loneliness and alcoholism, so perhaps we'll steer clear of this name connection.

3) Is he named after the town of Holden, Missouri?
No way! This one was really from left field. This town of 2,500 residents is famous for ... well, nothing I could find. So, while we may drive through this town on the way from the Lake of the Ozarks to Kansas City one day, I think we'll keep his name free of any associations with this small dot on the map.

4) Is he named after the Australian GM-subsidiary car company Holden?
Random reference: yes. Connected to our son's name: no. But I wish. First of all, their logo/slogan (seen below) is "Holden. Go Better." I LOVE THAT, and need to print that on some onesies or something. Second, Holden automobiles were featured in many classic 1950s American films, including several Humphrey Bogart flicks, Hitchcock movies such as The Birds, and an Otto Preminger film featuring a sexy leading actor named ... wait for it ... William Holden.
4) Is he named after Holden Caufield, the narrator and protagonist of J.D. Salinger's 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye?
Ding, ding, ding ... we have a winner! Although, we did not entirely pick the name from this novel (which is one of my favorite's), after re-reading the entire novel out loud to our own little Holden while he was still in the womb, we both fell in love with the character (even with his imperfections and idiosyncrasies). And we liked the name because it was fairly unique and uncommon.
And I can now take this a step farther: the last name of Salinger's Holden Caufield links to the novel's famous rye-catcher metaphor, in which Holden wants to be the person responsible for catching carefree children playing in a field of rye from obliviously falling off a nearby cliff. A "caul" is a membrane that covers and protects embryos and remains on some babies after birth, so that, in "holding caul" in his rye field metaphor, Holden Caulfield wishes for all children to retain the pure, youthful ignorance they possessed before birth (before being brought into this world)—to, figuratively, retain their caul. Our own little Holden wanted nothing more than to "retain his caul" last week -- to the tune of 53 hours of pure resistance to entering this world and a smattering of post-birth rebelliousness.

People have also asked if anyone knew the name outside of Bryna and myself, and the answer technically is "yes." This past June, our friend Becca totally guessed the name, saying that she thought "Holden" from Salinger's novel would make a great name. I had to, of course, pretend I'd never heard of that novel and that I thought the name was not very interesting at all (while simultaneously panicking that she might see through my cover and peg us on the name, which we had almost completely decided on at that point). So, props to Becca!

Nothing would end this post better than a taste of pure Holden Caufield from Chapter 18 of Salinger's gem:

"The trouble with girls is, if they like a boy, no matter how big a bastard he is, they'll say he has an inferiority complex, and if they don't like him, no matter how nice a guy he is, or how big an inferiority complex he has, they'll say he's conceited."