Liam's name

Fitzwilliam Torbjorn

Yep, that's a whole lot of name, even for a ten-pound baby. Here's the story.

I wanted to name him Fitzwilliam after Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, the gentleman hero of Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice. (I'm a bit of an Austen scholar.)

Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy

Mr. Darcy is a gentleman, a man's man, and one of my favorite literary characters of all time. We liked the way Finnegan and Fitzwilliam sound together, and we liked "Liam" as a shortened version of Fitzwilliam (it's the last four letters, you see). Finn and Liam sound nice together, and both names have a little Irish flavor as a nod to Gianni's paternal heritage.

Gianni really liked the name Torbjorn, which is a Danish name that means "Thunder Bear." We had seen the name and become familiar with it while watching the Ironman triathlons on television.

Torbjørn Sindballe

Torbjørn Sindballe is a professional triathlete from Denmark, and he was one of the top finishers in Ironman Kona (the big one) for several years before his recent retirement. We decided that Torbjorn (Thunderbear! Roar!) would be a really cool middle name.

The night before Liam was born, Gianni was looking online to confirm the spelling of Torbjorn. We decided to use the Anglicized spelling with "o" instead of "ø," since "ø" is not in the English alphabet anyway. While he was looking online, Gianni discovered that Torbjorn Sindballe's birthday is October 21 - the same day as Liam's. We took that as a sign that this was a good choice of a middle name.

Gianni emailed Mr. Sindballe to let him know that his name had inspired our son's name. Mr. Sindballe wrote back almost immediately to give us congratulations and a little history on the name Torbjorn. How cool is that? Mr. Sindballe also said that he uses the Anglicized spelling of his name when using English. No sense trying to give people fits trying to find the "ø" on the keyboard.

So that's the story. Besides, after searching our family trees and discovering names like "Oleander Lafayette" (yes, for a man), we decided whatever we came up with would be fine.