So, What’s in a Name? Plenty!

I have bought houses a lot quicker than new parents pick out a name for their  unborn baby.  Sure it helps if you know the sex of the child. That eliminates 50% of the stress!

 

You don’t want your child to have an acronym that spells out anything, so Fredrick Charles Kerby is out-FCK—too close for comfort!   Or Elizabeth Ann Sally (after your grandmother) Yarger, or EASY for short! Particularly when she goes to high school and there is already enough peer pressure to have sex as it is! With initials that spell out EASY, you just know she’ll be hunting you down!! And it doesn’t look good either, when she graduates from business school and you have her initials carved out in gold on her new, expensive, leather briefcase! Think parents before you leap! Elizabeth is a lovely name. Perhaps you could compromise with Grandma Sally and your mom, Ann, and switch the initials.  Then you can sleep at night. Who’s going to make fun of ESAY on a briefcase?  The worst that will happen is that everyone will think she can write an essay well!

And what about baby name books and baby naming websites.  Sick of all of them too?  Don’t want to give your child the popular” name of the year”? Now you can even check your own state to find out just how” in demand” your name choice is this year. Wikipedia will tell all! Let’s take Florida for the most popular male name.  That would be “Jayden” and number two would be “Jacob”, followed by Ethan, Michael, Mason, etc.  In 2012, the most popular boy’s name in all the states was “Mason”, so if you named your son, “Mason” and you wanted to discipline him in the mall for misbehavior, you’d say, “Mason Adam Divine” come here! Tricked you!  You forgot that acronym spells MAD, and that’s your first mistake! Your second mistake would be to call your child only by his first name, “Mason”.  In this case, most of the other little boys in the mall would come running to you—a very popular name, indeed! 

If you had a girl, and loved the name “Emma”, you’d have the same problem in almost any mall in the entire United States from Massachusetts to Mississippi—kid you not!  But it’s a great name. Actually, my great-great grandmother’s name was Emma, so was my husband’s Grandmother!  It does withstand the test of time! So, go bold, and popular, if you love the name.

How about if you wanted to name your child after a celebrity that you admired?  Jason Lee, a pretty funny dude, named his child “Pilot” after a song he heard by the band Grandaddy, called, “He’s Simple, He’s Dumb, He’s the Pilot”.  And what about the name “Apple”, the child of Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin?  At least they had a sweet reason (no pun intended), “because it was sweet and wholesome”, is the reason they gave.    And the list of equally ridiculous names goes on and on and on and on!  Look it up! Oh you probably did already! Please, please, please think before naming your baby.  The name may sound fine at the time, but long after you have departed this earth, that name will live on. 

And then there is naming your child after a family member or someone on your Ancestry.com family tree.  That would be best. Whenever you say, my child was named, “Stone,” for example, you can quickly lay a disclaimer on a person by delivering the deep roots in the family tree spiel! That, honestly, can be one of the best legacy’s you can leave your child.  The gift of connection… the gift of belonging… to a lineage of people whom you can then show pictures of and discuss stories passed down through time.  That name is the connection to your past… to his/her past… and to the future. 

 Parents, you should always have the last say in naming your child. I know you agonize about it and make the best choice you can.  You want your new family to be distinctive, so how about a nice compromise? For instance, choose the first name to match your new family’s needs.  So…you got pregnant at Deer Island, so you name your little girl, Deer.  Then, for balance, with such a different name, take the opportunity to honor your family tree, either yours or your husband’s or partner’s, and give her a middle name which reflects the connection and respect for someone special in your family. So maybe, “Deer Jane”—Jane, after grandma Jane.  I admit it is a bit weird, but with a name like Deer Jane Jones, at least the initials are respectable (DJJ)! And with any luck, her classmates will call her, D.J.! 

 Tip:  Names are treasures if we take special care of them.  Our children are branded for a lifetime by their names.  Parents, it is a huge responsibility to craft the best name possible for your little one so that when they have grown old, they will still smile when someone calls their name out loud!