Gas Station Birth Inspires Possible Baby Name Tradition for Indiana Family

Hannah Adkins was about 35 minutes from the hospital when her water broke. Her fiancé, Marshall Vanklompenberg, drove toward the hospital, but Adkins felt the baby’s head crowning. They pulled into a Huck’s convenience store parking lot in Fort Branch, Indiana. Customers outside the store watched as Adkins went into labor in the car. Less than five minutes after her water broke, their daughter, Hazel Louise Marie, was born in broad daylight. Hazel weighed 5 pounds, 12 ounces and was healthy. Adkins caught the baby and pushed three times. Afterward, the couple became minor local celebrities and considered naming a future son “Huck.”

"“Then my water broke,” she tells TODAY.com. Within moments, things were moving far more quickly than anyone had anticipated. As her fiance, Marshall Vanklompenberg, drove toward the hospital, Adkins, 19, suddenly felt the baby's head crowning. Vanklompenberg, 21, pulled into a Huck's convenience store parking lot in Fort Branch, Indiana. Customers outside the gas station began turning toward the family's Toyota, trying to understand what was unfolding inside the car, as Adkins cried out in pain."

"Less than five minutes after her water broke, the couple's daughter, Hazel Louise Marie, arrived in the front passenger seat in broad daylight. Born on May 15, Hazel weighed 5 pounds, 12 ounces and was healthy. “I pushed three times and she was out,” Adkins says. “I caught her and everything.” The similarity between the baby's first initial and the gas station was purely coincidence: Adkins says she had wanted to name a daughter Hazel “since I was 12.”"

"Now, after the memorable delivery, Adkins says Vanklompenberg has suggested “Huck” if their next child is a boy. “He's like, 'We might as well just name him Huck,'” she says. In some ways, the name has already taken hold. The chaotic birth has since made Adkins and Hazel minor local celebrities. She tells TODAY.com they are now frequently recognized in public as “the Huck's lady and baby!”"

"Country singer Brad Paisley and actor Kimberly Williams-Paisley named their son William Huckleberry, and the 19-year-old goes by “Huck.” Television survivalist Bear Grylls and his wife, Shara, also have a 17-year-old son named Huckleberry, nicknamed Huck. Baby name expert Pamela Redmond previously told TODAY that Huck shares a similar appeal to Finn. “In its full form, Huckleberry is slightly ridiculous, but Huck"

Read at TODAY.com