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Jessa Duggar Seewald Gives Surprising Nickname For Baby Spurgeon Elliot

By Samantha Kilgore
Published on: 13:40 PST, Nov 12, 2015

In case you’ve been wondering (or even hoping) that new parents Jessa Duggar Seewald and Ben will call their baby something besides Spurgeon, you may now set your mind at ease.

In response to her many fans asking whether she and Ben will call their new son Spurgen or Elliot, Jessa has a surprising response. Although the baby will be called both Spurgeon and Elliot, Jessa and Ben have a unique nickname for the newest Duggar baby that has nothing to do with his actual names. It isn’t a derivation of either Spurgeon or Elliot — nor it is a combination of the two names. In fact, the nickname, Jessa laughingly admits, has nothing to do with either of the baby’s names.

Although Jessa says the baby will be called both Spurgeon and Elliot, his nickname is firmly Quincy — and has been, she says, since she and Ben first discovered they were expecting.

The reason behind the nickname Quincy is actually pretty cute — and 100 percent Duggar. Jessa laid it all out in a blog written by friends of the Duggars.

“When we first found out that we were expecting a baby, Ben and I were talking about a letter theme for our kids and Ben suggested, ‘Why don’t we go with the letter Q’?’ lol! Of course that was a joke, but from that point, Ben started calling our little one ‘Quincy,’ and the nickname just sorta stuck.”

It just sort of stuck — the way nicknames often do.

Jessa and Ben welcomed baby Spurgeon Elliot “Quincy” Seewald on November 5, after a home birth that was hard on Jessa and resulted in her hospitalization. In fact, according to Jessa, very little about her son’s birth went according to plan — which is usually the way it goes. After 10 hours of labor, Jessa herself almost changed her mind about having a home birth, she told People magazine.

“I said, ‘That’s it! I’m done! I am going to the hospital and I’m going to get an epidural.’ They asked me if I really wanted to do that and I said, ‘No, I don’t, but I do.’ I wanted to try natural if at all possible.”

She managed to deliver her son at home — the baby weighed a whopping nine pounds, 11 ounces and measured 21-and-a-half inches long at birth — but had a scare when she began to bleed too heavily after the birth. But, Jessa said, everyone remained calm while mom Michelle Duggar called 911.

The couple waited a week before revealing the name they chose for their firstborn child. The name Spurgeon Elliot, while certainly unusual, has deep meaning for Jessa and Ben. As new daddy Ben explained, the name Spurgeon came from the 19th century theologian Charles Haddon Spurgeon. His writings, Ben said, have influenced him and Jessa a great deal.

“He had a big impact on our lives. His writings and his sermons and books are still around today.”

The baby’s middle name of Elliot has a great deal of meaning, as well. The Seewalds chose it to honor husband and wife missionaries Jim and Elisabeth Elliot

Jim Elliot was killed in 1956 in Ecuador by members of a native tribe to whom he had come to spread the gospel. Rather than returning to America, his wife Elisabeth instead stayed, spending years serving as a missionary to the very tribe that had killed her husband. When she did return to the United States, she became a writer — one who was both prolific and widely admired. She passed away in June, at the age of 88.

With a name as fraught with meaning as little Spurgeon Elliot has, perhaps it’s for the best that his nickname is on the lighthearted side.

[Image via Twitter]

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