About 3 weeks before Quentin was born, we decided that the boy name we'd picked (Luke Nathaniel) just didn't fit with our other kids' names. So it was back to the drawing board. We revisited the master list that we'd created while pregnant with Isaac, and started narrowing it down again.
Here's our list of baby name criteria:
1) two-syllable
2) non-shortenable
3) great meaning
4) not in the top 25 names, but still recognizable
If we really loved a name, we'd be willing to compromise on any one of these, except the no-nickname rule.
One problem was that I'd had Quentin on my list, but Monte had Quintin on his. I don't like Quintin, but he preferred it to Quentin (yes, there is a difference - Quintin rhymes with safety pin, and Quentin rhymes with ink pen. If you can't distinguish between those two words, I pity you). Plus, we had discarded it early on due to meaning anyway (they are both derived from the ancient Roman name Quintus, meaning 5th). We like names with significant meanings, and neither name would work for a first or second child.
This time around, we still couldn't agree on the E vs I, so it was again discarded. Add in the fact that Monte liked the name because it could be shortened to Quinn or even Q! I am actually OK with using Q around the home, but i am not OK with Quinn, especially since it's growing in popularity for girls. And Quentin is the more accepted version in America.
So three weeks before he was born, we revisited the name. I had convinced Monte that Quentin was a better option than Quintin, but I still was hung up on the not-so-meaningful meaning. Until I remembered that this child would be the fifth member of our family, so the meaning actually worked for this child, but wouldn't again. So all that was left was to figure out a middle name.
So that's when we called our moms to find out what other name options were for us. Monte's parents had not considered any other names for him, and Mom was going to name me David Michael had I been a boy. I don't particularly care for either of those names, so we were stumped. About 15 minutes later, Monte walked into the room where I was on the phone with Mom to mention a possible middle name. As he walked in, I asked him about the name Mom had just suggested - Matthew. That was the name that Monte was going to suggest, so it was perfect. Plus it means "gift of God" so that more than made up for the rather prosaic first name.
I can't imagine him with any other name now. And it has the super coolness factor like Monte. So that's how we came up with his name. He's not really named after the shuttle bus driver named Quintin, nicknamed Q, that Monte once knew. Yes, that put the name on his real-life radar, but it was on our list first. And it's not even the same name. But we do call him Q!
