Name Surprise

I have loved my name for as long as I can remember. My full name is Jordan Michael Heflin. I was born in 1985, which is the same year that Michael Jordan finished his rookie season with the Chicago Bulls. I have always been a huge fan of the man who most people think that I was named after. In fact most days I can be seen wearing at least one thing that contains my name, most of the time it is my flip flops, yes even during the winter.

However, not until recently did I find out actually how my name really came to be. I had always been told by my mother that I was named after the Jordan River from the Bible. My middle name came from my father because his first name is Michael. This is what I knew for 26 years of my life until I was talking with my parents recently about trying to figure out a name for our daughter. My dad came in with a Paul Harvey moment and said and here is "the rest of the story".

During October 1984 while my mother was taking a shower my father was watching the nightly news. One of the headlines that night was about a small town in Jordan, Minnesota involving an investigation into a child sex abuse scadal at a daycare. My dad recalls that he didn't remember much about the story, but it was the name of the town that caught his attention. He said the name of the town in his head a few times and decided that he kind of liked it. He yelled into the bathroom to my mom who was still in the shower "What do you think of the name Jordan?"

My mother said she said it a few times in her head and thought about the Jordan River in the Bible, a place that she had actually visited during a trip to Israel during her college years. She decided that she liked it as well so she yelled back that she liked it. That is the true story of how I got my first name.

What was even more fascinating to me is that at the same time I am hearing this story for the first time, so was my mother. I couldn't tell during the story if he was telling the truth, so I googled Jordan, Minnesota and the first link was about a sex abuse scadal that happened in 1984. So, I learned that there are always two sides to every story. Maybe you should ask both of your parents how they decided on your name and see what happens, you might be surprised too. Thanks for reading and God Bless!