The Name Game

Choosing your baby’s name is a potential minefield. Emotions are bound to run high (as if they’re not already!) when the time comes to narrow it down from say ten or twenty thousand candidate names to the single moniker your baby will bear for the rest of his life.

There are several things to keep in mind. Your cute little guy or gal will one day grow up to be a man or woman. ‘Bug’ may seem cute now, but will it convey his personal dignity when he’s older? ‘Sissy’ may seem like a fun little name for a cute girl, but what if she grows up to be a district attorney or a professional wrestler? Stranger things have happened. She’s not likely to be mush of a sissy then, is she?

Of course, there’s always the struggle over family names. Uncle Jim Bob has to be honored because he was your wife’s favorite uncle who all but raised her from infancy. But what about your grandpa Hiram? Doesn’t he deserve immortality of a sort? Well, maybe not at the expense of your child’s future identity.

You see, names are more than simple identifiers, like social security numbers. They not only identify us, they also contribute to and even shape our identities in ways no number ever will. Like it or not, odd names are often a burden. Can you imagine a girl named Ragburta winning the Miss America Pageant? I thought not. Would you really respect a policeman named Evelyn? Some names are just no longer fashionable, if they ever were. And the last thing a child needs is to be singled out and ostracized for having an unusual or downright oddball name.

Of course, I’m not advocating the removal of personal choice, as at least one Central American country has done. There it is a crime to choose an unapproved name. This was done, explained one government official, to prevent children from being named distasteful things by ignorant and/or illiterate peasant parents. Her example was a child who bore the repulsive name, Defecation. Yup. Her well-meaning parents evidently thought it sounded like a somewhat holier name, such as Conception. No such luck.

In this country parents have named their children for favorite items or activities, such as Chablis or Beaujolais. Of course, these questionable monikers pale in comparison to names that seem devised to invite ridicule, such as Ima, whose last name just happened to be Hogg. Or little Dick, whose last name just happened to be Tingle. I’m not making this stuff up. Honest.

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