I wanted to name my kid Jericho

Could have been baby Jericho

By Kevin Hunsperger

@kevinhunsperger & @my123cents on Twitter

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Our oldest son just turned 18 this month and I was reminded of the early days of my wife's pregnancy and how we as first-time parents prepared for our baby's arrival. My wife started reading What to Expect When You're Expecting and I checked out articles online for tips on being a good dad.

Then my mother-in-law bought us a book filled with baby names and the process of trying to figure out what we'd call our child started. An early "pee and Draino" test indicated we were going to have a girl. But an ultrasound and professionals confirmed our DIY test was invalid and we'd be the parents of a baby boy in January 2000. So we threw the name Gracie out the window and started the process over again.

Jericho's WWE debut
Courtesy: WWE

We each came up with 20 names we liked (this included the middle name too as well as input from our families). Because I'm a die-hard wrestling fan I was influenced to include the names of some WWE Superstars on my list. At the top was Jericho, as in Chris Jericho. You might recall Y2J had debuted in WWE a few months prior. I'd been a fan of his in WCW, but his persona in WWE cemented my fandom. As you might imagine, my wife, who is not a wrestling fan at all nixed the idea pretty quickly. She leaned toward Peyton but I balked because I didn't want people to think we named our son after Peyton Manning. We were living in Indiana at the time and he was the star QB for the Indianapolis Colts. 

I have nothing against Manning, I'm just not a big football fan and knew people would draw the similarities. If they were going to draw a connection with our son's name, I wanted it to be with someone I was a fan of. Makes sense, doesn't it? So I countered with alternatives like Piper and Hunter as well, but I'm not a fan of the "er" ending first and last names as in Piper Hunsperger or Hunter Hunsperger. Needless to say, those ideas didn't make it far either.

Ethan 18 years later

We finally settled on Ethan and there's no real fun or entertaining story as to why. It was one of the names in the book and it caught both of our eyes. This was at a time before everyone under the sun named their son Ethan, but I digress... 

Jericho
Courtesy: WWE

The recent hype of Jericho battling Kenny Omega at WrestleKingdom 12 also served as a reminder of how I wanted my first born to be the namesake of one of the all-time greats in the wrestling world. I have never met anyone else with the first name Jericho so it would have definitely been something unique. I still dig the idea all these years later.