…and then there’s the story about the New Zealand parents who are mad that they cannot name their kid 4 real. since the NZ registry office won’t let them register a name with a number in it, they’re naming him the highly rational name superman instead. but they’ll stick to their guns and call him 4 real in daily life. they have chosen this name, 4 real, because when they first saw his ultrasound, they knew he was … wait for it … 4 real.
now, people should be allowed to name their offspring whatever the hell they want. but i often marvel at the names people choose for their kids. as if there’s something meaningful and important in naming your child qwerty because you conceived him while laying on a keyboard. i’m still marvelling at the popularity of the name nevaeh, which is heaven spelled backwards. its especially popular among holy rollers. but isn’t the opposite of heaven hell? is your baby the new god of hellfire?
for me, naming my children was a cultural experience. in my culture, we name our children after beloved dead people. (or, at the very least, we use their initials.) but i wanted names that i thought were beautiful, names that wouldn’t get my kids’ asses kicked on the playground. i cannot imagine what some parents are thinking when they drop names on their kids that will surely land them in therapy one day.
and those parents in NZ? well, one day, i figure the kid will do what zowie bowie did.
when zowie was about 12, he asked people to start calling him joey.
Are they serious? Naming a kid Superman or 4 Real could really get him in big trouble. Oh, i know someone who named their kid “Hitler.”
Seriously, names should be a source of confidence and not something a child would feel very inferior with. Darn parents!
Your comment about not wanting your kids to get their their butts kicked at recess reminds me of a Simpson’s episode about naming Bart. Homer nixes a few ideas Marge has because the names rhymed with certain words. So when Marge finally suggests “Bart,” Homer says “hmmmm, Art, Cart, Dart, Gart ….Ok.”
(paraphrasing because I am too lazy to look it up. I am sure someone has transcribed it somewhere)
hee haw!
…and that is why, my dear scully, i am sortakinda glad my name is sheryl. nothing rhymes with sheryl except “peril.” kind of appropriate, i guess, but way beyond the vocab of most 3rd graders.
now my LAST NAME got me grief all through school. something about a monster, ya know.
and i still kept it, anyway 🙂
AJS has a favorite rant about inner-city kids being named things like (seriously) Sinutab Propecia Jones and Camry Dasani Williams. We know it’s true. Why? I can’t even speculate. One of my favorites is the myth? (oh, I hope so) that a mother liked the look of a word on the birth certificate form and named her daughter “Female” (pron. fe-MA-lay).
Here’s a hilarious website with commentary about crazy choices for baby names:
Baby’s Named a Bad, Bad Thing
Read Freakanomics – there’s a whole chapter on baby names with great stories about a mom who named her daugher “Shi-TADE”…except she got creative with the spelling and spells it…shithead. Then there were the twins, LeMONgelo and OrONgelo — spelled lemonjello and orangejello… And this weekend, my SIL told me about someone she knows who named her daughter Jovi — yes, after Bon Jovi.