{"id":1328,"date":"2010-10-28T11:01:10","date_gmt":"2010-10-28T16:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/2010\/10\/28\/mikaylas-name\/"},"modified":"2010-10-28T11:01:10","modified_gmt":"2010-10-28T16:01:10","slug":"mikaylas-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/2010\/10\/28\/mikaylas-name\/","title":{"rendered":"Mikayla&#8217;s Name"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/Mikayla085.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Today is Mikayla&#8217;s 18 month birthday.&#160; A lot has happened in the last year and a half and I could not imagine how we could have been more blessed by her.&#160; Having this mile marker come, coupled with the fact that she is learning her letters and I have been going through my old Hebrew textbooks has me reflecting on the origins of her name.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border-right-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto\" title=\"Mikayla 085\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Mikayla 085\" src=\"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/Mikayla085_thumb.jpg\" width=\"404\" height=\"304\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><small>[<em>Mikayla Lillian Kickert about to leave the hospital<\/em>]<\/small><\/p>\n<p>Many of you know the subtle nuances we chose to include when naming our daughter Mikayla Lillian Kickert.&#160; First, Lillian is her great grand-mother&#8217;s name \u2013 a woman <a href=\"http:\/\/beth.kickert.info\">my wife<\/a> greatly respected (Obviously the &quot;Kickert&quot; part came from me and my family).&#160; We chose Mikayla for several reasons.&#160; Most importantly we want to pay tribute to one of my heroes \u2013 <a href=\"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/tag\/martin-luther-king-jr\/\">Martin Luther King Jr<\/a>. \u2013 by&#160; giving her the initials MLK.&#160; (I wonder how many white girls are named after King?).&#160; But the name Mikayla also carries with it special meaning.<\/p>\n<p>Traditionally &quot;Mikayla&quot; is said to mean &quot;a godly woman.&quot;&#160; It is a feminine derivative of the name Michael and has its origins in the Hebrew language: <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border-right-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto\" title=\"mikayla-like_god\" border=\"0\" alt=\"mikayla-like_god\" src=\"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/mikaylalike_god.png\" width=\"300\" height=\"130\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We just happened to be thinking through baby names while I was taking several Hebrew courses at seminary and because of that I was able to recognize there is actually another way to translate &quot;Mikayla.&quot;&#160; It can also mean &quot;who is like these&quot;:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border-right-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto\" title=\"mikayla-like_these\" border=\"0\" alt=\"mikayla-like_these\" src=\"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/mikaylalike_these.png\" width=\"229\" height=\"128\" \/> Considering her initials point to a civil rights hero and her other names come from highly regarded family members, this reading carries extra weight.&#160; Whether we use it to refer to a godly woman or to a person who is like &quot;these&quot; influential people, we are projecting a sincere desire that our daughter grow up as a person whom others would want to emulate.<\/p>\n<p>Words are powerful and names (usually) last a lifetime.&#160; 18 months ago we were intentional about choosing our daughter&#8217;s name so that she would always be reminded of godly people who are willing and able to change the world.<\/p>\n<p>Happy half-birthday Mikayla.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today is Mikayla&#8217;s 18 month birthday.&#160; A lot has happened in the last year and a half and I could not imagine how we could have been more blessed by her.&#160; Having this mile marker come, coupled with the fact that she is learning her letters and I have been going through my old Hebrew [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[540,542,165,626,92,625],"class_list":["post-1328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","tag-birthday","tag-hebrew","tag-martin-luther-king-jr","tag-meaning","tag-mikayla","tag-names"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}