The Name Game

So, of course I'm going to take Dusty's last name, Sanders, but I'm going to keep Thews as my middle name and drop my current middle name, Randolph (Randolph has been in my family for 4 generations on my maternal side: my great-grandmother, my grandmother, my mom, and myself). However, Thews has a lot more "meaning" to me than Randolph does, so my new name will be Rebecca Thews Sanders. Rebecca T. Sanders. Hehe, it's so fun to write...

It was interesting, though. Dusty's family had not heard of keeping your maiden name as your middle name - his mom and sister dropped their maiden names completely. But in my family, the women have always dropped their middle name. How interesting.

Some history about Thews...
I know that this is a name that originated in Denmark - and originally pronounced "Taves" (weird, huh?). Also, if you look up "thews" in the dictionary, it's definition is:
–noun
1. Usually, thews. muscle or sinew.
2. thews, physical strength.

No wonder my fam is so strong! :)

My new name-to-be is Sanders. I don't know a whole lot about the background of the name, but here's what I found online:
Sanders is derived from the name Sander, which was often used in the Middle Ages as a form of the name Alexander. Alexander is a Latin version of the Greek Alexandros, from alexein, "defend" and aner, "man" or "warrior." So Alexander means something like "defending warrior." From the medieval short form Sander, the patronymics Sanders and Sanderson evolved (an additional name, older than a surname, indicating who your father was.)

How very interesting!! So I go from "physical strength" to "defending warrior" - nice!