Naming Names: Crimes Against the Junior League
Posted
June 15, 2008 at
2:08 pm by
Kymberly
On the auspicious ocassion of this Father’s Day I think it only fitting to bring up a rather touchy subject. What’s a day that’s all about family without bringing up something sure to piss nearly everyone off anyway?
Recently, I have begun to branch out in my daily newspaper reading. Now that I have discovered the birth announcements, I am no longer confined to the police blotter to keep up with the myriad ways humans can commit crimes against the innocent. When it comes to giving children outlandish names designed to say (about the parents, mind you) “look at ME” I really do think there ought to be a law.
Don’t believe me? Just read your local paper’s birth announcements. There you will see for yourself that there really are people who name their children “Alltruism” and “Hayllheigh.”
Crimes. It may be too late to save little “Mikhaill Jaxson” or the twins named “Silk” and “Satin,” but if you haven’t already committed what ought to be a felony against your soon-to-be-named infant, there may still be time for you to save yourself: Or more important - your child.
Trust me, you really don’t want to bestow on an innocent infant a name with nontraditional or alternate spelling. Ask yourself if you really want your child to be constantly saying “that’s Mikalle” with two “L’s”” or “no, no, NO, it’s “Taylahr,” with an “H.” That is time better spent mowing the lawn or discovering a cure for cancer.
Middle. This is not to say that I don’t understand your desire to leave a lasting impression on your offspring. If your need for creativity cannot be denied, that space between the first and last name can be put to good use. A middle name is like a tattoo on your backside: It’s always there, but it’s really up to you who sees it. So it goes with a good old fashioned embarrassment of a middle name. This is where you can stretch your wings and saddle your child with a name that will permit her to know who her real friends are. Her real friends are the ones who know that her middle name is “Nirvana.”
If you think I’m kidding about creative names, cast your mind back a generation. In the 1970’s a free spirited (maybe somewhat stoned) generation of young parents saddled their offspring with names like “Windy,” “Sunny,” “Spring” and the occasional “Freedom” or “Oz.”
Needless to say, when those glorious days of youth wore thin - and they sobered up - so to did the wisdom of such impetuously chosen appellations.
Imagine coming to your senses just in time to realize you did indeed name your baby “Freedom Space” and you are going to have to yell THAT across a playground for the next ten years?
Self-fulfilling. No, as time marched on, those who believe that a name is a self-fulfilling prophecy saw such creative “hippie” names as less a ticket to a free spirited journey down life’s highway and more as a ticket toward becoming the featured performer at a strip-club advertised along the highway.
Thus, many a “Freedom” and “Sunny” has since changed his or her name to a nice, middle-of-the-road sort of Michael, Karen, Beth or Tim. Doubt it? Ask yourself when was the last time you met a bank manager, PTO President, or neurosurgeon named Oz?
This is not to say that the imaginative among us have cornered the market on doing very bad things to babies. No, having successfully squashed the urge to name a hapless babe after a soap opera star or environmental movement, we must address the calamity that might occur when the pendulum swings too far the other way.
Here is where Father’s Day comes in. I am speaking of the overwhelming urge shown by some parents to give no thought at all to their baby’s name and instead stick to what they already know how to spell.
Junior league. “Juniors.” I firmly believe that when you “Junior” someone, you deny his (or her?) individuality. It tells Junior “You are your parent, only less.” Is infancy really the best place to begin the inevitable struggle with issues of self-esteem? No, a more positive take could be achieved with a nice upgrade: Think “John Smith Plus.”
This would imply that this is the new and improved model with most of the bugs found in the base model having been successfully worked out. Granted, it might have the unfortunate side effect of implying that the original John Smith was rushed through production and may have been put on the market prematurely, but isn’t that a risk you should be willing to take in naming a baby after yourself Mr. Egopants?
Speaking of risk, if you could be sure your Junior would grow up to be a huge success, it might be nice to bask in his reflected glory. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always work out the way it is hoped. Imagine the awkwardness in being Lee Harvey Oswald Sr?
Tags: babies, baby-names, Family, Father, Jr., Junior, names |
15 Responses to “Naming Names: Crimes Against the Junior League”
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1. Kelsey said:
June 15, 2008 @ 2:47 pm
I hear you! All my kids have normal names, I always thought, you know, if they grow up to be a doctor or lawyer, what would look goood on a business card and inspire confidence. I do like naming kids with names that have short forms, like my sons name is Benjamin or Ben for short. But I have a friend who is naming her kids after the X-Men…yeah that’s right. She has two sons named Xavier and Logan (you’re saying okay well it could be worse, only a fan would know right now) but when she has a daughter, she is currently debating between Phoenix, Rouge or Storm as a first name. And it’s not even that she’s giving them normal middle names to fall back on. For her next son, his name is going to be Madrix Hunter Achilles. I also think that you should look at people who hyphenate. I understand the desire to hyphenate your last name when you marry but as far as I know, you’re not supposed to hyphenate all your kids too. I think the day I looked in a baby name book and saw the name “Surrender” for a girl that it really just got to be too much. I think in some of us, our quest for indivuality has erased our common sense.
2. Rita said:
June 15, 2008 @ 2:59 pm
This is very funny, Kymberly. I don’t really have anything to add or comment on, other than this was very well written and hilarious. But…(OK, so I do have something to comment on, lol), do you find you have to tell people how to spell your name? One of my daughter’s names is Kathryn and I really didn’t want to spell it that way because I didn’t want her to have to go through life saying, “That’s Kathryn with a ‘y’.” Not that it would really matter with that name though, because there are so many spellings of it, I always end up just spelling it for the person anyway. It goes like this–
Me: That’s for Kathryn.
Other person: Is that Kathryn with a “c” or with a “k”?
Me: It’s Kathryn with a “k,” oh, and a “y,” it’s “k-a-t-h-r-y-n”
Other person: Ok, thanks, and the last name?
Then I get to spell out that ten-letter Italian monstrosity.
So, does Kymberly with a “y” cause you grief?
3. Kymberly Foster Seabolt said:
June 15, 2008 @ 3:57 pm
It generally happens when I am standing and giving my name to someone filling out a form
They begin to write and I say “oh that’s Kymberly, with a y”
They stop, pen frozen in midair, completely flumoxxed “where to put this y she is yammering on about?”
Seriously, people just … freeze.
The brain cannot comprehend where the “y” should go.
Then I say “it’s Kym, like Lynn” and it clicks.
4. Nancy said:
June 15, 2008 @ 8:42 pm
I spotted the name Monoxide in a birth announcement last year. I’d seen a lot of bad names before that point, but Monoxide was the one that made me start to think a law would be a good idea.
5. Jill said:
June 15, 2008 @ 9:42 pm
LOL! I am pregnant right now and on my due date bulletin board I just cannot believe the names some of these people are considering!! Don’t these people realize their kids will one day be adults who will not want to be known as a noun or adjective or place or weird apostrophised word instead of an actual name?
For my own kids, I prefer names that are not trendy (Madison) or plain (Sara)…but are still very recognizable as actual names and spelled properly. My Daughter is Zoe (getting popular, but it wasn’t 5 years ago when we named her) and we are thinking of Charlotte, Oliver or Violet for our next child.
6. Rita said:
June 16, 2008 @ 8:25 am
I like those classic names, too, Jill.
We actually have some funny history behind the names of our kids. But, one other trend that I didn’t even notice until very recently, is that I tend to like names with X, Y, or Z in them, and coincidentally, my kids’ names go in that order–the first has the X, the second has the Y and the last has the Z. Isn’t that funny?
7. Kymberly Foster Seabolt said:
June 16, 2008 @ 9:47 am
A decade later guess what? There is one other Matthew in our immediate orbit and you wanna take a guess on how many of those other “uncommon” names there are?
Stick to the classics. That’s my motto.
8. Rita said:
June 16, 2008 @ 10:09 am
Oh, but I love Mason. I know a teenager named Mason and I just fell in love with his name. It is so…I don’t know, masculine, yet with a heart. I totally see a cat or a character in a story in my future named Mason.
9. Allison G. said:
June 16, 2008 @ 12:20 pm
We named our son Kelly, not to be different, but to name him after DH’s favorite male cousin. The doctor’s office always says “she” when I make appointments for him. But Dh gets sooo cranky when they say “she”.
“Kelly was a man’s name centuries ago! This messed up society giving girls boy-names and boys girl-names!……..blah,blah,blah”
Our daughter’s name is Kaitlyn, and not that I have to be different or creative, but her name is sooooo freaking common that it just bores me. I wish I would have given her a more traditional or old-fashioned name that no one really uses much anymore….
….like our littlest daughter Holly. I didn’t think it was all that uncommon, but when you go to the store and see personalized stickers and toothbrushes etc, her name is never there, Kaitlyn’s is stocked full of her name, and Kelly’s is always in pink and purple girl colors. Oh well.
But there should be a law against bad names for kids. Dh went to school with a boy named Footch and his sister Butterfly…………
10. HughO said:
June 16, 2008 @ 3:46 pm
First time to imperfectparent, great site considering today’s news: Brice Brian McMillan is one. Starkeisha is the other http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-abuse15-2008jun15,0,5087554.story. Ugh.
11. Stacey S said:
June 16, 2008 @ 9:44 pm
Yeah….juniors are bad enough…but imagine if you have a well known name? My ex father in-law’s name is Bruce Wayne….then they did it again & that’s the name of my Ex-husband…remember that Snickers commercial a few years back where the guy got sacked one too many times playing football & he said things like “I AM batman”, or “to the bat cave!”? That was an exceptionally great year for the EX.
Now we’re divorced….guess what song is his ring tone on my phone? LMAO!
Oh…indecently his last name is Shwartz…ever see the movie ‘Spaceballs?’ The poor guy never had a chance!
Thank God you’re allowed to take back your maiden name.
12. Allison G. said:
June 17, 2008 @ 11:25 am
Ooohh, Stacey. I love Spaceballs. I would have a fun time picking on him. An evil fun time!!!!!!
13. july mom said:
June 17, 2008 @ 8:26 pm
Preach it girl! I h8 kre8tive names. I was in TJMaxx earlier this evening and there was a little girl in there names Princess Chardonay. Seriously. They were just calling her Princess (which at the time I thought might just be a pet name), but then when she didn’t listen, mom yelled out “Princess Chardonay Lastname get your ass over here now.” That poor child. Can you imagine when she’s older and has to go on a job interview?
I have an unusual name. Oh, and it’s spelled weird. Thanks mom and dad! I actually really like my name and if they had spelled it correctly, it wouldn’t be a big deal. Now instead of telling people how to spell it, I just let them spell it however they like. Oh, and it’s my middle name. I have a perfectly normal first name, but I have never gone by it. Ever. Weird, huh?
My FIL is a Sr, my BIL is a Jr, and my nephew is a III. My other BIL is a Sr and his son a Jr. WHY? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT? Dh wanted a Jr when we found out we were having a boy and I put the kibosh on that quickly. No way, no how. We gave him my mom’s maiden name for a first name and it fits him so well.
14. Grandma frm Ks. said:
June 18, 2008 @ 1:41 am
Oh gosh you girls I love reading you stuff, Rita will probably remember this one JoHnny Cash, A BOY NAMED SUE?, heck he beat his dad up over that when he finally found him (thats how the song goes) Alezandria, Darlene, LaVon, heres some spelled totally different Kailee, Kelsee, Kinslee, Kourtnee, all sisters, Clay, Andrew, Matthew, Donald, Elizabeth, Hayley, Justin, James, Michael, Farrah, Heres one I heard at Target, (not spelled right I’m sure) Shurika Day oh then Amber, Emma, April, Desserie, oh my,my
15. Trish said:
June 21, 2008 @ 7:19 am
Hilarious. A friend of mine, a doctor, was giving a young boy a health-check and she asked his mother what his name was. She replied “Brandon Lee James Dean” and my friend said, “OK, Brandon, just take a deep breath in for me…” and the mother said “No, it’s BrandonLeeJamesDean.” His last name was something else entirely.
My kids names were a bit unusual when we picked them but now they’re everywhere
(Madeleine and Ella, aged 10 and nearly-8).