Monday, October 10, 2005

A rose by any other name?

When I first got pregnant 7 or so years ago, one of the things I was most excited about was picking out a name - I mean, sure, I'd named pets and my first car (her name was Ingrid) but how often does one have the opportunity to name an actual human being*?

When the initial squee of getting to pick out a name wore off, I realized what a GINORMOUS responsibility is it - this human being will be stuck with this name FOREVER.

Way back, a million years ago in 1974 when my parents gave me the first name of Amy**, they probably didn't stop to consider that every other parent in the world liked that name (or Jennifer) and I would have at least 3 other Amys in every class I was ever in - but I digress

Initially we toyed with naming him Ferris Bueller, which wouldn't mean anything to kids, but to adults would be wicked cool, because that's a great movie - BUT - what's the only thing you can shorten Ferris to? Mmm hmm - nope, I'm not going to saddle a kid with the nickname "Ferry" and no decent middle name to fall back on.

Then we kind of liked the name Tucker, but then realized that sometime in his life, someone would introduce him to the name game and that wouldn't go over well (Tucker Tucker, bo bucker, banana fana fo... oh...)

And we liked Preston, because it's a cool name - but now Britney may or may not have named her kid that, so it's probably better that we didn't

Eventually, we decided on Quinn, and until some jackassanine celebrity gloms onto that name or someone named Quinn becomes a serial killer, all he's got to worry about is someone like Christina Aguilera doing a cover of the Bob Dylan song where we got the name. It's a solid name, not too cutesy, isn't too stodgy and will translate well into adulthood.

Let's talk about that translating well into adulthood for a sec - I'm assuming that the parents who thought that sparkly little names like Britnee, Ashlee and Kaylee were SO CUTE hadn't thought past the toddler years because, there's never going to be a Supreme Court Justice Britnee, a rocket scientist Ashlee or a Kaylee who will be taken seriously, no matter how smart she is. Yes, sweet little eeeee names are cute, but not on anyone over the age of three - if you're stuck on that name, fine, buy a parakeet but don't name your child something at which the admissions counselors at Harvard are going to snicker. Or if you HAVE to, like if Buffee or Tiffanee are old family names***, at least give your child a decent middle name to fall back on because isn't your child already going to have enough to deal with? You know, since they're your child and all? Think about it



*not including Mormons, because they get lots of turns for that

** for those playing along at home, Catherine (Cate) is my middle name

*** which, they're not, okay, don't lie - so just don't

Labels: adventures in shitty parenting