Family’s name game favors University of Texas

In the Army, her husband was with the Color Guard and Honor Guard. He also did presidential escorts.

“We have three kids: Major, Colt and Austin. My husband’s uncle went to University of Texas and his grandfather is a huge UT football fan. When I got pregnant the first time, my husband said we should name him Major after UT quarterback Major Applewhite. And I was like, ‘Oh, no, no, no. We are not naming him Major. He’s going to get picked on.’ I thought maybe we should name him Tristan, from the movie, ‘Legends of the Fall.’ But he didn’t like that. So after six months, it grew on me and I said, ‘OK, Major is cool.’

“So, Major was born, which was around the time Colt McCoy was the UT quarterback. Then my husband said we should call our next boy Colt, and I said, ‘Uh, no.’ But, of course, we ended up naming him Colt.

“Then our daughter came along and he liked the name Austin. I liked it, too, but wondered if it would be too boyish. Then we were at a restaurant in Washington, D.C., and a waitress comes up, and her name was Austin. She said her parents met at University of Texas, so they named her Austin. I figured that must be a sign, so we named her Austin Rose.”