What's in a Name - Trafton?

After I wrote about how we arrived at Quay's name, Daniel said that I never really told the story of how we arrived at Trafton's name in full detail.  So, two years later, here it is :)

We tossed around several names for our baby boy, eventually agreeing on Elliott as a first name.  Elliott is Daniel's middle name and this came from his mother, Anita's, maiden name.  She passed away when Daniel was 16 years old.  We both loved the name and thought it was a great way to continue a family name.  When we talked about middle names, we came up with Trafton.  Trafton comes from a man named Jon Trafton who is one of the founding members of the band Strangefolk.

Strangefolk is a band that Daniel and I, as well as many of our close friends, hold very close to our hearts.  We listened to them very much in college and took many road trips together and with our friends to go see them play live.  They are a rock and roll band that originated in 1991 in Burlington, Vermont.  For several years in a row Strangefolk held a music festival called the Garden of Eden usually at a location in New England, but sometimes in upstate New York, on Labor Day weekend that many of us made a tradition out of attending.  Some of our favorite memories come from those Labor Day road trips with our friends. 

Since we discovered the band, Strangefolk has endured many challenges.  Another founding member, Reid Genauer, left the band at the peak of their popularity in 2000. Strangefolk reconfigured their line-up and continued to tour without Reid. Later, Jon Trafton was diagnosed with cancer.  These are some of the things that have led them to not play all too often anymore and their final Garden of Eden was held in 2007, which we attended.  Because of our deep love for this band and their music, and our admiration of the strength, humility, guitar playing, singing and songwriting of Jon Trafton, we decided to honor this part of our lives by using the name Trafton. 

In the end, we decided we preferred Trafton Elliott to Elliott Trafton.

Shortly over a year prior to Trafton being born, our very good friend Joe and his wife Kristin gave birth to their second child.  They named this baby boy Joseph Reid after Reid Genaur.  Joe lived with Daniel during college and also shares our passion for Strangefolk.  Joe also married us asThe Reverend at our wedding.

Today, Jon Trafton is a cancer survivor. Just this year Strangefolk reunited with Reid Genauer. We'd like to take another road trip to New England to see Strangefolk and we hope that someday Trafton and Quay can join us.