This weekend, I will be attending my cousin’s baby shower. I am very excited because she is my favorite cousin and she’s the second one of the eight of us cousins to have a baby. I am even more excited because she is going to have a little boy and I have a little boy. Family gatherings are going to be very, very interesting in a year or two as Declan and Dylan get to know each other and play together at family gatherings.
The topic of baby names is always an interesting one. One thing that Dylan and Declan have in common is that both of them have middle names that are the first name of their maternal grandfather. I remember that when my husband and I were choosing Dylan’s name we found a few different meanings for some of the names that we were considering, depending upon where we looked. I wondered if my cousin and her husband are finding the same thing when they read about their son’s name. I decided to do a little baby name research to find out what the different meanings of my son’s name and my cousin’s son’s name are and what cultures the meanings come from.
Dylan is a Welsh name meaning “great sea”, or “son of the sea”. However, in Ireland it can be used the way that we spell it or as “Dillon”, and either spelling means “flash of lightning” or “faithful and loyal”. All of those things seem pretty nice but when my husband and I chose our son’s name, we did not choose it for any particular reason than that we both really liked it. We do both really like the ocean, but that was not a driving factor in our decision. Declan is an Irish name, and it means “full of goodness”. I did not find any other meanings for Declan or other countries of origin, but I really do like the meaning of the name. I am sure that my cousin’s little boy will be very full of goodness and will prove his name to be an appropriate one.