Baby in Progress – Rikuto

It’s been a month since Mami last went to the maternity clinic, but she went back today for another check-up, and everything is fine. I wish I could have gone with her, but I can’t deny my students their weekly English class! Nevertheless, I got to see the latest video of Rikuto, the baby formerly known as “Peanut”.

Since we found out that Peanut is a boy, it wasn’t hard choosing a name. We had pretty much decided long before Mami got pregnant what we would call our first child. If it were a girl, she would have been named after my Italian grandmother Liliana, but since Peanut is a boy, he gets the name Rikuto. We both liked this name because my name in Japanese is pronounced Ni-koo, and he will be Ri-koo.

Of course, Rikuto could be used in English as Richard, Ricky, Rick, Rich, or even little Dicky, if he takes after his father! Okay, so whether a girl or a boy, Peanut’s first name would have been influenced by my own or my grandmother’s name. He will of course take Mami’s Japanese surname, mostly out of convenience, but also to keep the family name alive. Unfortunately, it will sound much less glitzy than Ricky Ramsay!

Before we could be sure that the name Rikuto was suitable, we had to find some characters to represent his name. We eventually chose the Japanese characters for land and person. Therefore Rikuto means “Land Person”, or “Person of Continents”, which seems appropriate considering he will be both European and Asian.

These are the latest pictures. The quality this time is pretty poor, but it’s only four more months before I fill this blog with baby photos!

If you like, you can find me on Twitter at @nick_ramsay. I'd love to hear from you!