What's in a name

Johnny Dean Wilson ?

Let me first start with what is important to Matt and me.  Our faith is extremely important to us--Faith is what brought us together, and it is often the glue that keeps us together.  Without First Trinity, our church in Pittsburgh, Matt would never have been baptized and he wouldn't be the rock I rely on today.  I would not have grown in my faith to the comfort level I am at now.  In our journey together, we have had several people who have truly inspired and influenced us, and we felt honoring and remembering who is truly influential and important to us.  We have been blessed with wonderful family and friends and that is where we drew much of our influence.

Johnny - Johnny is a variation of both John and Jonathan.  Two names you saw in a blog post about a trip to Michigan.  Both John and Jonathan we met at First Trinity within our first month at Pitt. 
John quickly became our best friend.  John is Orthodox now and is going into the priesthood.  John always encouraged Matt and I as Christians and encouraged our relationship.  John talked us into getting married one day in October 2005--it wasn't that hard--but he put things in perspective with his persistent questioning of why wait to get married?  He served as our best man.  We are thrilled to see John fulfill his own life goal of getting married.
Jonathan is Matt's godfather.  I cannot even begin to quantify the respect that Matt and I have for him as a father, a Christian, and a husband.  The Wards served as our best friends and spiritual rocks through several years in Pittsburgh.  We spent many days gathered at their house as part of our student fellowship as well as spending time together as couples.
Neither Matt nor I are a fan of nicknames, and we really liked the idea of having a little "Johnny" so rather than name him John, Jon, Jonathan....Johnny is what we were going to call him, so that's what we named him.

Dean - Matt's maternal Grandfather who has been a positive influence in his life.  He also happens to be Matthew Dean's namesake.  We wanted little Johnny to know where he came from, without naming him Matthew.  So the best idea was to continue the family tradition of "Dean." Matt certainly is proud of his "little buddy" and he has enough of his daddy's habits already that it seems appropriate.