The joys of baby naming
Early on in the process of picking names for our son I threw a name into the mix that my wife did not like. (It was the name of the baker in the Godfather who was bringing flowers to Vito Corleone in the hospital when Michael met him on the stairs. Anyone know the name?) It was not nearly as bad as what the American Idol contestant named her child, but my wife wasn’t pleased, nonetheless.
While it wasn’t a name that I was tied to, it was definitely different and memorable. I like traditional names, but the idea of s0mething different was also appealing. Joie over at Crucial Minutiae has an interesting article about baby naming and says that it “has turned into a high stakes ‘individuality’ contest.” And as bad as my wife may have considered the name to be, some people are taking it too far. At least I didn’t choose “@”. That’s right, someone wanted to name their child “@”, and no it wasn’t Prince, Seal, Shakira or McLovin.
According to Reuters in Beijing,
A Chinese couple tried to name their baby “@,” claiming the character used in e-mail addresses echoed their love for the child, an official trying to whip the national language into line said Thursday.
The unusual name stands out especially in Chinese, which has no alphabet and instead uses tens of thousands of multi-stroke characters to represent words.
“The whole world uses it to write e-mail, and translated into Chinese it means ‘love him’,” the father explained, according to the deputy chief of the State Language Commission Li Yuming.
While “@” is familiar to Chinese e-mail users, they often use the English word “at” to sound it out — which with a drawn out “T” sounds something like “ai ta,” or “love him,” to Mandarin speakers. (Full story on Reuters.)
In light of this, maybe my suggestions won’t seem so bad to my wife. We still have another few months to go though and she’s hormonal, so we’ll see.
Rick: So Vyvian, any thoughts on the baby’s name yet?”
Vyv: ‘Shut up’ or ‘Piss off’.
Rick: Oh right right. Well if that’s the way you’re going to be about it…
Vyv: Oh no. Those are the two names I’m considering: very handy for getting into fights in later life…
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Friends of a friend of a friend tried to call their kid Alien Ripley (after the lead character in the Alien series). In the end they weren’t allowed and they ended up having to call the kid Ripley Alien.
It doesn’t matter what you name him — someone won’t like it. My son’s name is Cedar Blue. No middle name and he has his very own last name. I get grief all the time. But had I named him Joe Smith, I’m sure it would have been the same.
You have to tell those of us without sophisticated knowledge of the Godfather’s minor characters what you originally suggested naming your child! I am very curious.
And I hate to say it, but I think Jennifer’s right–there may always be someone who doesn’t like the name you choose for your child. I just think it’s important that we don’t cross the line between “marketing” or “branding” a child and just plain naming our kids.