A little namesake energy toward my father's
middle name, Lee... A deep admiration of Leo Tolstoy (not JUST his famous novels) on my part... We both like the name, the simplicity and sound of it... We've felt settled on the name if a boy for a couple/ few months now-- and when we met him we knew : )
(A postscript on the Lee namesake: for a good while in name-discussion phase, Lee as a middle name (like my dad) was a thought; Nathaniel was a strong name candidate (Nicholas as well-- the middle namesake is my cousin Nick, 10 days older than me (Leo has a boy-cousin Alex who'll live close to us, born 3 weeks ago : )-- anyway, back to Nathaniel: at one point, the name Nathaniel Lee Lehtinen came up-- it sounded great except SO Southern/ Confederate... Not our style : )
(A second postscript, noting a family instance of the name Leo that I hadn't known/ remembered when we came up with it-- my father's father, Edwin Lehtinen, was raised from the age of ten by an aunt and uncle on a farm in Minnesota (due to tough financial times). It was hard for him to be separated from his mother and siblings, but he remembers the aunt and uncle fondly. The uncle was named Leo : ).
