to name names

I don't know if you have noticed but I don't often use names in my blog. I think it makes for richer story telling in some way. But today I am going to change all of that...

In my life as an over-sharer I think that this will completely and totally take the cake. I think that it may end up in my mom's "no" book and reveal my husband's "what were you thinking" look. And I have asked neither of them for their permission, I am rebelling against the system.

A year and a half ago I started a journal for our first born kid. This kid is NO WHERE in existence right now, except in ovum form (hopefully) somewhere within my ovaries. Over-share, I warned you.  But that hasn't stopped me from picking out a name for our baby.

I have been given free reign by my husband to name our children. I think this is a very gutsy and smart move on his part. He knows that I take it very seriously, and will research the heck out of it, as I am already doing. And gutsy because I tend to like to walk the 'road less travelled'. I should tell you that all of this has helped me to prepare for the eventual additional human running around our house and it has been fun and completely stressful. That is also why I think that I need to have the names solidified before I am even pregnant. I cannot imagine the stress of finding a name while the size of a house and making life within this tiny female machine. So I'm doing the work now.

As I said, I started a journal. It is in electric format, I hope to one day put it into a PDF and give it to "kid" as a weird birthday present one day. Here you go, "kid" I thought of you a lot before you were born, and I wrote it all down. Fears, hopes, anxieties and a lot of crazy names that I stumbled upon in my hours in front of the internet. Be thankful you didn't end up as that one. I have also started mentioning a little brother or sister for this kid who is not in existence yet because I am the youngest of eight and know the feeling of the other ones having all the staged portrait pictures when they were little and you getting the candid polaroids. So I've started mentioning another little one. I know, I'm getting WAY ahead of myself, you don't need to tell me that, I know.

(Here it goes, this is where I start naming names, and if your name shows up, I'm sorry, this is just my opinion and sometimes opinions aren't worth a grain of salt).

Names go in and out of fashion. I remember in grade seven, every girl in my class was going to name their daughter Mercedes. I know some people by this name but I probably wouldn't name my daughter that now. And that is the conundrum. Finding a name that is cute when the kid is a kid and lovely when the kid is an adult. Mercedes makes a lovely adult, but the time for naming your kids after cars has passed.

The other thing is that everyone will have an opinion (as I am expressing here) and you cannot please everyone. People will lie to my face when my baby is a new born and say that's an adorable name and then turn around and barf. That's ok. I've done it too. But once a baby is named you can't really fight the parents, it's an official document and that would be horribly offensive if you did fight with them over the name of their child.

What brought this entry about was that on the same day I came across two names that almost made it to the maybe pile. One was Felicity and the other was Lola. I know, I know. So the first one for me, Felicity, fell into the snooty category. A name given to be prestigious and stately, instead it comes off snotty and pretentious, I unfortunately have a habit of picking those names. Felicity means great joy or great happiness. And then Lola, pretty, short, two syllable, Lola, means lady of great sorrow. On the same day I chose names that mean the exact opposite of one another. Great happiness, great sorrow. Maybe I'll have twin girls and name them that and see what happens, sort of an anthropological study of the affect of names. I see a great dissertation coming out of this.

Olive was on my list at one point also, but I gave it to my brother for his dog and then his dog died a very flatly tragic death. It was awful. After she died I asked him to never tell my child, should I name her Olive, that his dead dog was her namesake. The secret is out and I cannot ever name my child Olive. People may also think that I was copying Drew Barrymore, and let's face it, that is the worse crime in this scenario (not Drew Barrymore, but being unoriginal).

I have often hemmed and hawed over Claire too. I like it's shortness and excess of vowels. It is a pretty name, but it sounds very similar to my name and it doesn't form a nickname. And when thinking of a name I have to always consider the nickname. My family is notoriously bad for renaming children. We simply cannot handle leaving a name as is. Lola would become Lo (which I really like) and Felicity would become Fel, or Feli (fell-EE) or something awful like that. And Claire would be Claire-y. In my family if you have a long name it gets shortened, and if you have a short name we add up to six syllables.

I loved Frederick for the longest time, because I think that Fred is a great name, kind of funny in a cheeky sort of way, imagine a little 2 year old with the serious name of Fred, gets me every time, I would hope he would have a very dry sense of humour at an early age. And then a friend of mine told me that it was on her list and I scrapped it.

I read an article today about how William, Emma, Sophia, and Noah will run the world in the next generation, I am trying to avoid names with that rank in popularity. My husband and I both have fairly uncommon names. They aren't completely unique, just not as common as most. And I don't necessarily want my child to go through the pain of never having a souvenir without their REAL name on it (I could always find a mini license plate keychain with a C, never with a K).

I'm on the hunt for a classic but slightly off-beat name. I realize that I am like all of the other hipsters, I mean millenials, naming their children right now, having high hopes of resurrecting Laverne. But also not because then I would be unoriginal. Darn you Gen Y traits, why do you have to be so classically OOAK?

That's all.


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