Why Miles?

I have had a lot of people ask the logical question, "What's the significance of the name Miles?" That is a great question. I mean, choosing a name is one of the more stressful parts of having a child. The name is something that a child is going to have to live with for the rest of his life - or at least until he's old enough to legally change it.

So naturally, Lisa and I struggled for a long time trying to decide what to name him. We didn't actually make the decision until we were in the recovery room after Lisa's c-section. Here's the logic: We just like the way the name sounds. It's not a family name. It's not a biblical name. We didn't even name him after my good friend Jim Miles, although I thought about giving Miles a "silent Jim" on his birth certificate. In fact, when you look up the origin of the name Miles, heres what you get:

MILES m English The meaning of this name is not known for certain...

I love that...because we were uncertain of what to name him up until the last minute!

If you dig in, the origin of the name is believed to come from the Latin word for "soldier". We hope that Miles will grow up to be a mighty soldier in the army of God! I pray Jeremiah 29:11 over him all the time!

While that would make a great reason for picking the name, the truth is that we just like the way that Miles sounds! As for the middle name, my middle name is Gregory, which is my dad's first name. We liked the idea of carrying that tradition on to the next generation. Thus the name Miles Joshua Surratt!

I was happy to hear that my sister and her husband are now thinking of naming their first child Kilometer. Ha!