As my wife and I have recently learned that we have a baby on the way, I think the timing is right for a few helpful hints on baby names. Your choice of a name for your child is very important, as he or she will be known to the world for their entire lives by the name you give them. Therefore, it’s important that you not be a freaking idiot when selecting their name…here are a few common-sense ideas to keep in mind when naming your little bundle of joy:
1. Awkwardly spelling a name is not the same as being original
Look, we all want our little baby to stand out in this overcrowded mudball we live on, and having a unique name helps in this regard. However, being original is not defined as choosing a very common name and then messing up the spelling. “Cindy” is good; “Sindee” is a pathetic misspelling of a common name in an attempt to be original. If you want to name your son “Cody” then do it and live with the original spelling – don’t punish him by spelling it “Khodi” or something like that.
2. Your child is not an inanimate object or a consumable product.
Although it may be hard to tell sometimes (especially when they’re watching TV), children are not inanimate objects. There names should reflect this truth. Show them the dignity they deserve and refrain from naming them after objects. There’s nothing worse than seeing a kid named “Cloud” or “Cappuccino” or “Denim”. Also, please resist the twisted urge to name your child after alchoholic beverages with which you are intimately familiar. If names carry meaning and bearing, what kind of legacy are you trying to give them? “Heh…son, when you grow up, maybe you can get drunk off the same beverage that you were named after! WHOO yeah!” Real nice.
3. If you don’t have any culture, neither should your kids!
Now I don’t have any problems with people embracing their heritage and passing that legacy on to their children. The problem occurs when you have parents named Jason and Jennifer who use “culture” as an excuse to give their kid a strange name. They won’t know anything about a particular culture, or any culture for that matter save their own, and yet they’ll proudly announce the birth of little “Umbublu” or “Lee Chi Wan” or “Svetlana”. Give me a break…don’t give your child an Asian name when you couldn’t find Asia on a map and have as your only exposure to that culture the fact that you have had an egg roll from “Happy Dragon”. Just looking like people from another continent does not make you a person from another continent. You don’t even know what meaning or significance the name might carry in that other culture, but you don’t really care do you? As long as your kid’s name is original…it’s all good right? Wrong.
Don’t put your child in the awkward position of having to constantly quell thoughts of revenge on you…follow these simple rules and give them a normal name, would ya?
5 comments:
In my sky, the clouds are animate. They may not be living, but they do move across the sky and sometimes discharge various forms of precipitation. I still wouldn't name my child cloud...maybe lava or bird, but not cloud.
Matchstick:
A turd moves through the sewer system, but that doesn't make it animate - you ARE a hippy
LOL@yobbo! Very insightful and funny retort!
As for you matchstick, you do seem like a hippy...now put down the bong and join us! Is your first name "Kevin"? Ah yeah - I know who this is! :)
Yobbo? That has some interesting meanings.
Animate can mean 'to impart motion.' Therefore, I would argue the turd, while moving, is animate. I realize it isn't moving by it's own power, much like a cloud is pushed by other forces. Nonetheless, I wouldn't name my child turd, either.
I don't think I'm a hippy because I like to bathe, can't stand Baez or Dylan, and believe in capitalism. But you are welcome to think of me as anything you like. By the way, please share why you don’t like hippies.
JC: I had no doubt you would know me! Glad I'm transparent...at least to you.
You ARE a Republican!
If you lived through the 60's you wouldn't like the Hippies either
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