What is a Thunder Bear? Why a Wren?

When my husband and I first moved in together we would lie in bed and stay up talking. He was the first boyfriend to ever ask, "What are some of your favorite names?" I remember this moment well, the room was dark, I probably had a big grin on my face because this question, as simple as it sounded, meant a lot more to a gal like me. It meant there was a future. It meant there were possibilities of starting a family and naming a child of our own. That night I learned that we were complete opposites when it came to names. He liked Carol, I didn't. I liked Isabel, he didn't. I don't think we agreed on a single name.

Now that we've been together for over 6 years I think our tastes have meshed a little. We are still complete opposites when it comes to most things but that's part of what makes our relationship exciting. We still talk about names. I know he likes Danish ones, he knows I like Japanese ones. One day I was looking up Danish names and came upon Torbjorn (Thorbjorn is the Nordic spelling). Torbjorn means "Thunder Bear". I told Mike, "How about Torbjorn? It means THUNDER BEAR." I said Thunder Bear in the most thunderous voice possible. He said, "I like it, I even just like Thunder Bear." We laughed. What a powerful name. I sort of like Thunder Bear too, but probably not as a first name and probably would stick with Torbjorn or Thorbjorn but I like knowing that it translates to Thunder Bear. I think it's a contender if we have a boy.


We've lived in North Carolina now for about 4 and one-half years. We moved from the quiet desert mornings of Albuquerque, New Mexico to the loud, bird-chirping, squirrel-foraging, bunny-hopping, frog-ribbitting, owl-who-ing, rolling hills of Chapel Hill, NC. It almost took a year to get used to the loud wake-up calls of the NC mornings. I would pretend that one bird would wake up and say to his bird buddy, "Hey, Fred, you awake?" and Fred would say, "Yeah, you been up awhile? How 'bout you Norm?" "Yep, I'm awake, you awake Maggie?" and then every bird in the neighborhood was up and chatting away by 5 a.m. There was one bird in particular that Mike and I picked out because of it's LOUD and distinct chirp. It went like this, "Chirpity, chirpity, chirpity, chirp!!! Chirpity, chirp!!!" I finally looked it up. I typed into Google, "chirpity, chirpity, chirpity, chirp" and up popped this link. A wren! A week or two later I saw the wren that was making this song and it was such a tiny, chubby bird for having such a loud clear song. I was impressed. Here is a youtube video of it's song: So that's why a wren. If you are a girl you may have Wren as part of your given name since Carolina will be the place of your birth. Thunder Bear(Torbjorn) & Wren are on our list of possible names.

Image from http://www.leafbear.com/2011/06/abad-day-5-thunder-bear/