Nolan Reed: What's in a Name?

For Jason and I, deciding on a name when we found out we were pregnant could have went one of two ways.  Before we knew the gender, we had discussed numerous hours worth of name exchanging... but only for girls!  We had known for years what our baby boy's name would be if we were ever blessed to be pregnant with a little man.  Yet, before we knew that a little dude was in our future, it was a never-ending battle of conversations like this over girls' names:

Me: I really like {insert name here}.  What do you think?
Jason:  No way.  It sounds like a stripper.  Our daughter cannot have a stripper name.
....same conversation for every.single.name I brought up.  Needless to say, apparently I only think of stripper names.

There were a few names we did come close to agreeing on, such as Layla, Avery, and Harper.  There were two that I really fell in love with, but couldn't quite convince Jason to love them just as much.  Maybe the next go-around of being pregnant, I'll try again (which is why I'm keeping them private for now )!  :)  

Boys' names, on the other hand, was a completely different story!  Jason grew up with a love of baseball.  He started playing when he was seven, and continued all the way through his freshman year of high school in Maryland.  He got injured and had surgery on his shoulder (he was a pitcher), and never continued playing through high school once he moved to Henderson.  Being an avid baseball fan, he grew up with Nolan Ryan as one of his favorite players.  When Jason and I first started talking about having kids and what we would name them (years, years, yeaaaars ago) he mentioned he always wanted a son named Nolan.  I instantly agreed that it was an amazing name, and so made the easy decision and early love of the name Nolan!  As for the middle name, I we randomly thought of Reed one night within the last year while watching T.V.  We put it together with Nolan and it flowed perfectly, and again, we both instantly loved both names and made our decision so easy!

Nolan Reed has always been our top choice.  It is strong and masculine, as well as professional, yet youthful, all of which we wanted in a name for a boy.  It is a well known name (#88 for 2012), but not a super popular one chosen for the time, so I'm hoping he will be one of the few Nolan's in his age group.   Nolan means noble and famous, and I've also seen "champion" listed under some descriptions, as well.  I can picture him to be smart, athletic, calm, confident and mature as he grows up, and we both feel this name is so fitting to our baby we've yet to even meet!  We've never thought of alternatives, so hopefully this baby comes out looking like a Nolan... otherwise we're back to square one!