Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My younger son and his wife texted us last night asking for family names of males.  They had already gotten the names of her family.  It was kind of fun looking up my family tree again, and as my mother was one of thirteen children, it brought up a lot of memories.  I have many uncles, and I included the grandfathers.  If I'd listed male cousins it would have been a epic account, but since I'm mainly close to one male cousin and one female cousin, and the rest are vague memories, I didn't burden them with a mountain of names.  Many of the cousins are named after their fathers, so it might not have been as varied as possible.  But remembering the faces of favorite uncles, some of whom are dead, really brought up warm memories, and one uncle and cousin had a name I really love.  But I didn't editorialize.  Let them see if anything appeals.  It's really interesting to me what my kids name their kids, and I stay out of the selection.  My mother wanted me to name my younger daughter after her mother, but it was also my husband's mother's name, and he had a troubled history with her.  I now regret not giving her at least that name as a middle name, because we gave our younger son my dad's name as a middle name.  Actually, my real regret is I didn't give our daughter MY mother's name, as I've always loved it.  Either her first or middle is lovely.  Instead her middle name is from a friend I haven't seen in two decades.  Oh, dear.  Life does play jokes on us.  When my daughter married, she took her husband's last name and made her maiden last name her middle name.  So she efficiently got rid of the lost friend.  There you go!