The Names We Name Our Kids

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Deciding on names for babies is a time-consuming process. Some parents agonize over names even after their babies arrive, and then, through hazy eyes, after going through hours of horrendous labor and delivery, Mom looks up at the doctor and mutters, “Yeah, I’m calling the baby, ‘Jekyll Hyde’.”

The name-your-baby process is so tedious, in fact, it sometimes entails lots of arguments. In the quest to find the perfect name, parents resort to baby name books after discarding such suggestions as, “Why don’t we just name the baby after Aunt Shuckles?” Even the kids jump in with their own recommendations, and Mommy and Daddy have to say, “No, Honey, we’re not naming the baby, Bo Bo.”

When I worked for a major teaching hospital in Chicago, I heard lots of odd names, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a name that, back in the 70s, I never knew existed. It was obviously a memorable name, though, because when I heard it again years later, I remembered it.

One of my favorite patients was an adorable little boy named Toy. He brought me so much joy every time he came into the hospital for his chemo treatments, because every time he came in, he searched for me over the big marble desk and when he found me, he’d light up the room with his bright smile. Toy had leukemia, so I saw him often, and though I hated the fact that he had to come in for chemo treatments, I always looked forward to his visits. (You can read about my encounters with Toy by clicking this link – A Boy Named Toy.)

In addition to unusual and cute names I heard during that time, I also came across some very strange names either in person or on the phone. Some names were so unusual, in fact, that I started keeping a list (long since lost). “Kitchen” was one of those names that made the list. “Do you want to know why he was named Kitchen?” his wife asked me. “Because,” his wife said, “he was born on the kitchen floor.” Wow! I am so glad my mom didn’t name me, Hospital Bed!

One poor woman had a mother who thought she had given her daughter a most lovely name – LaTrine. It does sound pretty, doesn’t it? But I had to wonder – do nurses ever try to explain to their patients what their name choices mean? I mean, if you were lying in your hospital bed after having just given birth, wouldn’t you change your name choice from LaTrine to something less “bathroomy” if your nurse said, “You do know you’re naming your baby, Toilet, don’t you?”

Still, sometimes the names you choose infuriate others for reasons that may not be clear to you, the baby namer. My mother scolded me for naming my oldest daughter, Keeley, because at the time (1969), it was such an unusual name that my mother thought my daughter would hate me for naming her something so weird. How would my daughter ever be able to find barrettes with her name on them?

Then, when my other three children were born in the 80s, my ex-husband, who didn’t like any of the names I had chosen for our girls, found suggestions from his bar buddies. Fortunately I liked the names, and since I had already told my husband that my boy would be named Greg, because I had chosen that name in the 6th grade and he had no choice but to agree (it helped that his name was Greg), I allowed my two other daughters to be named Lindsey and Brittney, even though they were conceived in a bar (the names, not the babies).

When my children started having children of their own, like their parents before them, they labored over what to name their babies. Pouring over baby name books, discussing different names and the spellings of those names, going through all the family names, all of them spent months coming up with the “perfect” name. Near the birth of my youngest daughter’s one and only son, my daughter and her husband finally settled on the name, Nolan. Isn’t it just splendid when both parents finally agree on a name? And what a beautiful name for a beautiful baby, I thought.

And then one day I heard someone call my grandson, Bubby. Seriously? You just spent the last 9 months researching names, embracing the name that took you months to choose, and you decide to call him Bubby? Reminded me of a time long ago when all my ex’s friends who, because my ex was more married to Budweiser than he was to me, wanted to nickname my son – Bud. Uh uh – with a last name of Wiza – I refused to have a son who reminded me daily of my ex’s favorite love. I won that argument!

When naming babies, parents should also consider their children’s initials, which can be a major source of anxiety for the kids who have to live with those initials. Some people spend so much time deciding on names, they give no thought whatsoever to their kids’ initials. Name your child Geoffrey Orwell Dodd and you could be raising a kid with a superiority complex. Edwin Vernon-Isaiah Love might have a complex of a different kind.

And how about these names?

Alice Sophia Simpson

Denise Isabella Erikson

Samuel Ellis Xavier

Francis Ulysses Kennedy

William Terrance Frasier (acronym)

Why put your kid through that kind of torment?

But WAIT – there’s more! What about names that mean something completely different in a foreign language? I highly recommend running a search on your intended name (you can never be too careful), making sure you look up the name in the dictionary (in case you have accidentally chosen a degrading name), and paying attention to initials.

Too late? Be grateful that Charles Manson didn’t name any of your kids. You could be the parent of Zezozose Zadfrack Glutz. Fortunately that poor baby, now in his mid 40s, was adopted and had his name changed! I can only hope LaTrine did the same – not that she was was later adopted, but that she got her name changed.

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9 thoughts on “The Names We Name Our Kids”

  1. Since I adopted my first daughter, Charis, I only got to help name my second, Jillian. But as a fiction writer, I get to pick out names all the time — a fun and sometimes maddening process.

  2. Southern Italians solved this problem a long time ago. Just name all your babies after grandparents and other relatives. That solves a lot of problems and keeps the family happy at the same time. 😉

    1. I wonder if it also creates problems if one grandparent wants the baby to be named after him, but the parents choose the other grandparent. Then again, maybe that’s why hyphens were invented. OR that could create even more problems – whose name appears first? Decisions, decisions. 😉

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