Origin of THE Name
As you may have noticed from the home page on this website, "Chick Monk" is the name we used to refer to our little girl till we came up with a more serious and permanent name -- hey, it was a fun name while it lasted! Mommy and daddy were experiencing all kinds of pressure to name Chick from family, friends and hospital staff shortly after she was born. There is a neat story behind Riley's name, and hence this webpage.
Mommy and daddy had several names under consideration for months, but could only agree on one name, that being "Riley". Our thoughts were that Riley would be the middle name. As republicans and democrats tend to vote along party lines, Krista leaned towards common american names that could be shortened into a nickname and Rob leaned towards less common and foreign names. Some of Krista's favorites were Samantha, Megan, Jenna and Stepanie. Some of Rob's favorite names were Kiersten, Heidi, Sabrina and Daisy. Mommy thought that daddy's names would either be too hard for Texan's to pronounce correctly or that they sounded like stripper names. ;-)
We decided to wait till Chick Monk was born and then see what name seemed most appropriate. Something very beautiful happend when daddy saw Chick -- she had many facial expressions that were exactly like the facial expressions his mom made during her last weeks of life after fighting MS and cancer for years. Connie Monk (Rob's mom) could not speak near the end of her life, but she spoke to us with her eyes and facial expressions -- here our little daughter was making the very same expressions. This made daddy think about his mom, whom he loved very much and misses dearly. Connie had such a loving and giving personality -- her character was very godly and God used her to touch many hearts and lives. While mommy and daddy were not crazy about "Constance" as a name for Chick, we decided to use Riley as Chick's first name and give her Connie's middle name, "Kay". It is our hope and prayer that Riley Kay Monk will grow up to possess the faith and character that Connie Kay Monk had. It is our way of remembering and honoring Connie in our little girl.
Connie Kay Monk
So we have a not-so-common first name that mommy and daddy both like very much and a middle name the goes well and reminds us of Rob's mom. And so Chick became Riley Kay Monk 9 hours after being born.
