tattoo designs for my son's name

I have the most popular girls' name of my generation: Jessica. According to the baby name database maintained by the Social Security Administration (SSA), it's the No. 1 most used female name of both the '80s and '90s.

Since there were always multiple Jessicas wherever I went, my name was basically reduced to my first name and my last initial. I didn't want the same fate for my kids, so I've always known that I wanted to give my children rare names.

During my first pregnancy, I bought four baby name books and lugged a different one on the New York City subway each day, along with a highlighter and Post-It notes for marking the ones that stood out to me. On my lunch break, I scoured Nameberry.com. I immediately checked any contenders into SSA's name tool, which tracks the 1,000 most popular baby names each year and determines whether they're trending up or down. No matter how much we liked a name, if it was in the top ten, we nixed it.

My husband, RJ, and I agreed on Lyla (current rank: 118) if we had a girl. Boy names were a struggle. RJ liked Chase, but I wasn't a fan because it made me think of Chevy Chase. I wanted Emmett, but RJ cringed at the thought of naming his son after Emmitt Smith, the Dallas Cowboys running back who beat his beloved Buffalo Bills in the Super Bowl. We like the baby-naming trend of using last names as first names for boys, like Connor, Blake, Colton and Cooper, but none felt right.

One day during the end of my second trimester, as I flipped through a Pottery Barn catalog, an image caught my eye: a little boy's train-themed bedroom with the name "Ryder" embroidered on the bedding. Something stirred within me, and I thought, that's a cool name.

"What do you think about the name 'Ryder' for a boy?" I shouted to my husband in the other room.

"I love it!"

I worried that once a name hit a Pottery Barn catalog, it would be too popular, but we had never met a Ryder before. Even better, it hadn't cracked the top 100 yet. To make it even more uncommon, we wanted to use the less-traditional spelling with an "i" (Rider) instead of the slightly more conventional "y" (Ryder). The more we paired it with my husband's surname, we knew it was the one.

Yet, every other day, I'd question if we were going to seem too trendy or too hip, or if our spelling was too weird.

"Are you sure you like it?" I'd ask RJ.

But my husband was unwavering.

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When we told our final choices to our parents, my opinionated, tell-it-like-it-is mother approved of both Lyla and Rider. She thought they were cute, which gave me more confidence. But then we told my father-in-law. After a puff on his cigar and thinking of the Ryder truck rental company, he suggested we "just name the kid U-Haul."

I knew the eponym would have mixed reviews, so a small part of me just hoped to avoid the whole situation by having a girl. (Good plan, I know.)

But in the delivery room, as soon as the doctor handed me the baby, I called out, "It's a boy!" Then RJ said, "It's Rider!" As soon as I met him, I knew his name fit him perfectly.

RJ couldn't wait to announce the news on Facebook and post a photo. Everyone left positive comments except for a few older people who confusingly asked, "That's his name?"

jessica wozinsky fleming, her husband, rj, and their son, rider

Baby Rider still has a unique name. It's not on the SSA list yet, and "Ryder" is still outside the top 100 most popular names.

Courtesy of Jessica Wozinsky Fleming

As I started venturing out with him as a newborn, I'd occasionally brace myself for a bewildered expression from older strangers in the supermarket when they asked what my baby's name was. I almost wished they wouldn't ask his name, because their double-take made me uncomfortable. Sometimes after those awkward encounters, I'd wonder if we made a mistake choosing something so offbeat. I'd peer into the stroller and imagine him with our other name options. They felt amiss. I reminded myself that we didn't name him to make other people feel comfortable, but for our son to make his own way in the world. I was self-conscious back then because his name choice was a reflection of me. Now, at 6, it's his name. It fits him, just like all names magically seem to do.

Choosing a name is the first and longest-lasting decision we make for our children. Of course, it causes anxiety. But it's just a prelude to all the choices we'll have to make for them — and the judgments we'll receive. No matter what choice you make in any area of parenting, there will always be someone with a different opinion.

Now Rider has three younger brothers, so my husband and I've had plenty of practice choosing baby names. None of those processes were as stress-inducing as the first one, but I still made sure our choices weren't in the top 100 at the time. We named our boys Everett (currently ranking at 90, but it was 114 the year he was born), Dermot (an Irish name that hasn't even made it onto the Social Security list yet) and Reed (currently at 450). When we named them, I wasn't concerned about what other people would think of our selections. Like all areas of parenting and life, the more experience and confidence you have, the easier it gets.

One day, Rider will ask how we came up with his name. We'll tell him the story — and share the other little connections, too. After we named him, my dad started calling him "Midnight Rider," a song by one of his favorite bands, The Allman Brothers. I'd never heard the song before, but I loved hearing my father give my son a nickname. I had grown up with my dad telling me that the Allman Brothers' song "Jessica" was one reason he chose my name.

We'll also tell him that the name "Rider" was a nod to the beginning of my romance with my husband. We met while training for a triathlon, and he asked me out on our first date after a bike ride.

Other than a character on Nickelodeon's Paw Patrol, which has made the name recognizable to the preschool set, our family has yet to meet another Rider. Although he doesn't have any other Riders in his first-grade class or soccer team, when that changes, he'll find ways to be unique, just like I did. Whatever the method and reasoning behind naming him were, it led us to the right one.

Perhaps what matters most, at least today, is that he loves his name. He likes it so much that when his teacher was looking for suggestions of what to call the class fish, he raised his hand and, with a big grin, said, "Rider!"

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