ClobberBlog | Mormonism, Evangelical Christianity

Name Nerds: Unusual, Unique and Creative Names

I discovered this web site yesterday and found it absolutely delightful. I enjoy a good discussion of baby names, and this site has some interesting, down-to-earth articles confirming a lot of my prejudices on what trends are bad. For example, I have always hated it when parents give their girls middle names like Ann(e), Lynn(e) or Marie–I mean, I have quite literally never met a woman (or girl) named Juli(e) whose middle name was not Ann(e). If you’re going to put so little thought into your child’s names, you might as well just do the thing where you don’t give her a middle name because “her maiden name can be her middle name when she gets married.” Because, you know, it’s always a good thing to teach our daughters that they aren’t complete people until they get a man in their lives.

My other pet peeves include:

Overused names ~ You know who you are, all you Johns and Michaels and Jennifers and Abigails out there. Parents in the US, please please please, go to the Social Security Administration’s Popular Baby Names web site and see how common your intended name is before you perpetuate the problem. And if it’s in the top 20, and has been popular for years and years, just say “no”–or consider a less common variation on the name. You may love it just as much, and it may save your kid from being one of four Emmas in her class.

But it’s family tradition! ~ So a name sucks and you’re going to go with it anyways just because your grandparents did it? Yeah, that’s real smart. If you want to honor your parents/grandparents/other relatives, but their name is common/ugly/stupid, consider looking up a smart variation on their first or middle name. The Name Nerds have a great article onsuggested variations for tired and overused names.

Stupid spellings ~ I don’t mind a little variation in spelling. A “K” for a “C” or a “y” for an “i” can breathe new life into a tired old name. But we’ve all seen examples of stupid spellings, “Brytnee” or “Kandiss” or whatever. A good rule of thumb is, if it would look stupid on a name plate, don’t do it.

I blame my dumb name on my parents even though I’m married ~ Something a lot of people don’t know: in the US, marriage is a free legal name change to ANYTHING you want, for both the guy and the girl. When you get married you’re free to change your first, middle or last name to whatever you please. If your parents gave you a dumb name, that’s their fault. If you got married and you kept the dumb name, it’s now your fault.

Our newborn is here and we don’t know what to name him/her ~ I’m not even sure how this happens. Did you not notice your belly swelling up over the last nine months or something? If all goes well, the name you give your child has to last him or her for about 90 years. You really ought to put a little thought into it before he gets here, not after when you’re tired and exhausted and the hospital staff is pressuring you to just put something down on the birth certificate. I understand when people want to meet the actual baby before they decide on a name, but these people usually have some ideas of what they want and aren’t totally clueless.

Kooky Religious Names ~ I used to talk to some Jehovah’s Witnesses, and they said they had a member at their church named Nephi. ‘Nuff said.

In choosing my child’s name, I personally went ahead with something that many other people list as a pet peeve: giving a once predominantly boy’s name to a girl. Now, the name Harley was never a popular boy’s name, and by the time I picked it up it was well on its way to feminization. But I can see how the complaints about giving boy’s names to girls depletes the pool of solid male names out there.

Also, when I was in high school I picked up the nickname Jack. Not Jacquelyn, just Jack. Since I never cared for my middle name (Leanne, a small upgrade from Anne), I started going by Bridget Jack Jeffries in college, which kind of had a nice ring to it. When I got married I made Jack my legal middle name and became Bridget Jack Meyers. I still go by Jack with everyone except my close relatives, who have insisted on Bridget. A lot of people would say that’s dumb, but trust me it works if you know me.

That said, I would never, ever name a girl child “Jack.” I wouldn’t see anything wrong with naming one Jacquelyn and using “Jack” as her nickname, but I think girls should have at least remotely acceptable girl names. Jack isn’t even in the ballpark yet and I hope it never is.

One more thought. I ran into a young woman in my neighborhood once who begged me to help her get some Tylenol for her sick infant at home. She was obviously even poorer than I was and probably a single mother, so I agreed to help. As I drove her to the store, I chatted with her about her baby and asked what the baby’s name was. And she replied, “Trinity. I got it from the Bible.”

I just smiled and nodded.