Names

One of my teachers in elementary school once taught a kid whose name was Thomas Madideford Christopher Holmes Peter Calvanas Travanas Jones Perry Hanam. He was mocked. He was an unfortunate soul whose 10 names, in any pair conceivable, could have been the name of a normal boy. But his parents made an executive decision to have their son be a child who was derided and jeered at. My class made up a song to remember his name and commemorate his parents' cruelty.

This brings me to my point. Show some self control when naming your children. It is understandable that parents, when confronted with their wrinkly, red, beautiful baby fresh from the womb, they are overwhelmed by the beauty and otherworldly nature of having created a baby, and feel an exotic name is the only appropriate way to express their wonder. Thus insistence of people on naming their daughters Princess in every language available, almost none of whom speak said language, or can find the homeland of its native speakers on a map. I feel for these children.

What is perhaps worse than people who decide that all the "average" names available are unacceptable, but lack the drive to pick even an exotic name and research its meaning. These are the people who think naming their child Apple because she's the apple of their collective eye is clever. It is the same people who name their children things like Baby. It's like naming your dog Dog, except that your dog doesn't have to navigate 18 years of years being made fun of and desperately wishing for the day when she can get a legal name change, as well as an entire life with the parents who shackled her with the name. As sweet as you think the name you have chosen for your child is, think of the child's welfare.

I feel similarly about children whose names don't exist. The feeling that seems to accompany these namings is that any name currently available on earth is inadequate to express how perfect and unique the child is. Thus, a unique and impossible to pronounce name must be chosen. Naming something Zamoleania Angelbaby Johnson should be restricted to stuffed animals, and absolutely never be extended to the realm of human beings. I couldn't decide if this group of namers is worse or better than those who name their children too-cute-to-be-clever names, but I have ultimately decided that they are, for different reasons, on the same level of awful. There is the terrifying possibility that your child will turn out creative and beautiful and fabulous without your naming them something you deem to be described by said adjectives.

And nickname's don't undo the terrible wrong that these people have done. If the girl's name is Schanikaquafondelila and you say that we can just call her Shani, something's wrong. Shani is not in fact her name, and it is entirely her parents' fault. I feel much the same way about calling people by their (usually much more normal and pronouncable) middle names. If we're going to call the child by his middle name, then why wasn't he named that way? You can't name your child Poophead and insist we call him Barry, his middle name; I won't let you get away with it, and you should be ashamed for trying. Additionally, sometimes people are unaware of the fact that they are calling their friend by what is not her true name, and this can cause buckets of confusion later on.

Conventional names aren't the cruelty that some seem to find them. Neither are conventional spellings. So before you decide that your child's name will be Emily, but that it shall be spelled, Aemilee, stop and think. Will anyone ever be able to spell your daughter's name? No. Will she spend a lifetime complaining about it? Yes. So make sure before you name your child that a) people can pronounce the name b) people can spell it, at least sort of c) school children won't make fun of the name.

So decreed.