This child’s pregnancy was a difficult one and for a short time, we were certain that we would lose him. For the first 6 months of the pregnancy, everything was normal: normal weight, normal growth, normal baby movement. I even had a normal ultrasound at 16 weeks. And even though I was slightly bummed to learn that I was having yet another boy, i was happy to find that this pregnancy was normal. We, AGAIN, didn’t put much stock into the name we wanted despite the fact that we were sitting on 2 kids that had very strong powerful names. We couldn’t let this kid walk away with something half-ass. I was kicking around the name Takai or Takae, something that started with a ‘T’ because my husband’s name started with an ‘A’ and there were 2 kids with an ‘A’ name and here I was with my name that started with a ‘T’ and nothing. So, I bounced around a few ‘T’ names. For this baby, it didn’t take very long to come up with a name for him and I feel that the reason behind it was probably because he came early. At 26 1/2 my water broke and we were forced to consider the possibility that we would either have a micro-preemie or might loose him altogether. Thankfully, I did not deliver him that early, but was able to keep him inside for another 4 weeks. For that time, my husband and I thought about a few names and things that were close to us at the time. There was a movie that we were watching repeatedly, both at home and at the hospital (a thing that we would sorta do, watch movies repeatedly, over and over; ones that we liked a lot, ever since we first met), called Howl’s Moving Castle. That movie was our entertainment of choice at the time and we were extremely fascinated with the characters. So, again, with a quick thought in his head, my husband approached me with the idea to name our son after one of the supporting characters in the story, named Calcifier. Now, my husband being who he is, cannot be average; he must be unique with the spelling of our son’s name, so he decided to spell it, “Kalcypher”. The choice for the second name was sort of a no brainer as there was still the name of the first angel from my dream, but Michael is also a family name as my brother is named Michael, so we decided on a unique spelling for that as well. For his middle name, my husband and I decided on a name to memorialize a family member that had recently died in a car accident a few years earlier. This family member was very close to my husband, a person that he had helped to raise and watch grow up. So Kalcypher received his middle name from his deceased cousin, Darius Stephan.
Since we named Kalcypher, it’s taken our family and friends some getting use to the name. My mother was not use to the uniqueness of the name and I had to direct her to the movie we got it from. She was very hung up on the idea that the character we got the name from was a ‘demon’ and we had many a conversation trying to explain to her the differences in American and Japanese cultures and the direct translation of that word. But she came around after she watched the movie. I am still reminded, though of one ignorant friend that asked me if my choice to name my son Kalcypher had something to do with trying to name him Lucifier, the Morningstar? To that, I can only shake my Head.
Submitted by Terri W.
