Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Finding the Perfect Name




  
The name can be everything, who wants to eat at a restaurant called the Poo Palace or live in Ding Dong, Texas? If the original plan to use ‘Mine and Yours’ as the title, instead of ‘The Brady Bunch’ it may not have reached such an iconic status. We as humans are identified by our names from birth to death, and can be the difference between public acceptance and abandonment. It’s the parent’s responsibility to present their child with a name that will serve them well.
I don’t know when the trend of coming up with more modern names started rather than the standards like; Tom, Dick and Harry or Betty, Sue, or Carol. Just like with everything else, there has to be a variety of options to choose from. I can barely decide on what flavor of potato chip to buy, not to mention name a child.
It’s important that it be a name that won’t easily be made fun of, as Woody is already enough to deal with.  That’s two strikes against Harry. An effort is also being made to not share a name with anyone else in the family. We don’t want to copy and everyone deserves their own identity, plus gossip is made easier when you don’t have to decipher which Al or Alice is being talked about. Juniors or II’s etc. are different, but we aren’t going that route. The larger the family, the harder it is to find an original name.
Maybe it’s a sign that I'm too big of a couch potato, but a number of names makes me think of television characters. Hayden brings me back to the days of ‘Coach.’ Actually Luther was my favorite from that show and is more deserving of my firstborn to be named after. Or perhaps Dauber. There’s no Dauber’s in the family. If it’s a girl, Penny or Bernadette are worthy of consideration, but I’d expect her first word to be…Bazinga! The world of television unleashes a whole host of names; Barney, Opie, Kramer (Cosmo), Chandler, Frasier, Piper, Skyler, Phoebe, Kalinda and Cersei. (How many shows did you guess?) There’s big hopes for this child, so to name it after a legend seems fitting. However the suggestions of Bert, Ernie, and Oscar just earned me a look that told me how to get somewhere, and it wasn’t Sesame Street. Maybe I should have started with Kermit.
Since television didn’t work, I turned to a U.S map for further inspiration. There’s one spot that Jessica has vacationed many times and holds a special place in her heart. Therefore, how touching would it be to name it Myrtle after Myrtle Beach. Only it makes the baby instantly sound like a senior citizen. Is there anyone under 80 named Myrtle? There’s also Anderson, which is where Jessica was living when we started dating, but Anderson Cooper is on CNN and we are a Fox News household. Greta? That might work. Reminds me of the O.J Trial though, as Greta Van Susteren got her start by covering it. Speaking of the O.J Trial. Kato is another name that comes to mind. The map ended up taking me in a direction we don’t want to go.
Finally, it struck me, the perfect name…June, after the month it all started. Only the child would be scarred when old enough to ask where her name came from.
Whether it’s a boy or a girl, I don’t know what its name will be, but it will be its very own.
 

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