Jeffrey McManus

People keep asking us these questions, so I’ll post them here so those of you who are only lightly acquainted with us will have some context.

When did you and Carole get married?
In 2000.

Is this your first child?
No. Our daughter, Celeste, was born in August 2001. She’ll start kindergarden in a few months.

Your daughter is striking! Has there ever been a more adorable child?
No, there has not.

Is Celeste all ready to be a big sister?
Yes, excruciatingly so.

Do you know the new baby’s gender?
Yes, it will be a boy, which means that teaching the child how to pee into the toilet will fall into my sphere of responsibility this time around.

Have you selected a name yet?
Yes. He will be called Revelin Newton McManus. According to the intarwebs, Revelin is the Gaelic form of the name "Roland," which means "famed throughout the land". (We recognize that this may be an aspirational baby name; at the same time, we are hoping that the lad’s renown doesn’t come from, say, being a serial killer.) Note that after interrogating numerous cultural informants, no actual Irish person we know was able to recognize the name Revelin, which may mean that we have picked one of those names that baby-naming references use for reasons of historical completeness (see: Adolph, Brunhilde, Genghis, Dukestir, Brittney), or it may be that it’s just vanishingly rare for no good reason. One way or another, we still like the name.

Why "Newton"?
In a clever ploy to curry favor with some of the few extended family members that will still talk to me, we decided early on that all our children would be given Carole’s family name as their middle names. Carole took "Newton" as her middle name, too, when we were married. The kids were given the name to honor Carole’s family; Carole took the name to get rid of a middle name she didn’t like. (And to honor her family too, I guess.)

Don’t you think that finding out the gender and announcing the name before the birth spoils the surprise?
No, this kind of thinking is silly and wrong. The surprise isn’t spoiled; it’s merely time-shifted.

Related posts:

1. Revelin Newton McManus
2. So What Are You Doing for New Year’s?
3. What I Learned from Sept. 11