Grant Meets the Inspiration for His Name

If there was a word to describe my grandfather it would be gentleman.  They should have his picture next to the word in every dictionary ever published.  Harris Dolan is 92 and has experienced so much in his life time that I think it would take my entire life time to learn everything that that he has been through.  He and I have a very special bond because I am his only grand daughter and his youngest grand child.  He is so honorable, kind, generous, intelligent, respectful and adores his family so much and would do anything for them.

Each time I spend time with my grandfather, I learn another lesson about life and he provides advice that carries a lot of weight in my life.  During a conversation a year or so ago, the topic of names was discussed and how in his lifetime he saw a theme where names more often than not, shaped the future of the person.  It is human nature to visualize someones appearance when hearing a name and many times we are not even close to how the person actually looks, yet we continue to do it in the future.  This also tends to hold weight when we receive resumes for a job opening, choose a doctor, and even when deciding if we should go on a first date.  I would provide examples but the intent is not to offend anyone or make a misjudgement myself.  So in this memorable conversation with my grandmother, unfortunately my grandfather probably does not recall it, he explained how men especially with one syllable names or nick names that they predominately went by, they tended to be more successful, likable, popular and well respected.  I will give an example of this because I know lots of successful men with one syllable; Jim, John, Bob, Rob, Mark, Rick, James, Tom, Bill, Ken, Matt, Luke, Dave and the list goes on.  Why do I bring this up?  I mentioned that I had considered naming a future child (I was not pregnant at the time) Harrison.  He explained that not only was it not one syllable as most successful men are, that if we shortened it to Harris like him or Harry, the child would be made fun of.  He was teased throughout elementary school and referred to as "Harry-ass"because his name was Harris.  

When Ricky (who goes by Rick most of the time) and I were trying to figure out what to call our little boy we knew it had to be one syllable.  We also wanted Harris to be a part of his name as it is very important to us.  So we just fell in love with Grant, and Harrison just sounded so good together.  Once we decided on the name it occurred to us that these were the last names of our nation's 9th and 18th presidents, who were also successful people.  

We were very fortunate to spend July 4th with my grandfather and he had the opportunity to meet Grant Harrison for the first time. We hope my Pop Pop is correct and that he is successful and that he has an extremely bright future.