Names

Nothing drives home the significance of a name like having to select one for your child. After spending nine months choosing the perfect, unique name, one that reflects your values and family history and proclaims to the world your personal level of insanity, you’ll soon realize some harsh truths. First, you cannot prevent your child from acquiring a nickname. No matter how determined you are that little Washburn Tiburon will never be called anything else, nicknames happen. My cousin thought her son Dean Keith was nickname-proof. He was promptly dubbed ‘Dinky’ by the neighborhood urchins.

Secondly, your child will never thank you for all those hours you spent poring over Volumes 1, 3 and 4 of “Unique Baby Names No One Else Will Choose, Trust Us.” (Volume 2 is completely taken up with various spellings of Brittany. Or Brigtknee.)

Your child will especially resent you if the name you bestow upon him or her requires a pronunciation guide. (“No, it’s pronounced Bob. The ‘k’ is silent. So is the ‘w.’ No, I don’t know what that little squiggle means. My parents threw that in to be different. Yes, they knew I was a girl. No, I disowned them when I was eight.”)

Remember that your children aren’t bumper stickers, so their names shouldn’t be something that would follow “I HEART.” The world doesn’t really care that you love your Lamborghini LM002, or the Philharmonic, or Hormel Chili, so these are not good choices for names. (You might get away with Philharmonic: ‘Phil’ for short. This would probably require a son. And if you HEART your Brigtknee Spaniel, just be sure to have a daughter and then B~wkob’s your uncle!)

If you name your son Joffrey because you adore that ballet company, he’ll spend his life saying, “No, not Jeffrey. Joffrey. Joffrey. JOFFREYJOFFREYJOFFREY!!!!” And if you name your child Beluga Starshine, he or she will have to explain that no, his or her last name isn’t Zappa.

Even if your investments provided you with the 1.5 million dollars required to keep a child in strained peas and I-Pods nowadays, you shouldn’t name your child Morgan Stanley Price Waterhouse. It won’t fit in the space allotted for names on the many forms your child will be required to fill out. (A recent survey revealed the average American fills out 4.7 forms every 9.28 hours. The number would be higher, but many respondents couldn’t fit their names into the spaces provided, and gave up.)

Hyphenated last names may cause your child problems, as well. If you and your spouse can’t decide whose surname your child will bear, don’t burden the little tyke with ‘Haversack-Adenoid’. Especially if, as I suspect, those aren’t your names at all.

As generations of parents have realized, your best option is to climb the family tree for a name to inflict on your progeny. When your child complains of being saddled with Bertha or Imogene, you can disavow all responsibility. “Family tradition,” you shrug. This may not be an adequate explanation, especially if the child in question is a boy. But you can take comfort in this: someday your children will realize how much love and thought went into the choosing of their names. Then they’ll toss them aside and select new ones.

Call me Ishmael.