Thursday , March 28 2024

What’s In A Name?

In the grandest scheme of things, especially my utterly chaotic life, finding a name for a child shouldn’t be such a big deal really – BUT IT IS. There are far greater ramifications behind one’s name that just letters and syllables.

And everyone wants in on the action, which unfortunately, I invited upon myself.

I am pretty sure that whatever name we come up with for “Junior” – that’s what I call him for now – it will feel like we merely settled for it rather than came up with it by “knowing” the right name.

It’s different for boys, it really is.

Choosing Lily’s name was a virtual breeze compared to naming this child. For one, we had a bevy of family names to choose from and old-fashioned names for girls have made a resurgence, so it was a glut of choices.

Lily was born of Lila, who was one of many aunts on Eric’s mother’s side. It was perfect and we KNEW and KNOW we made the right choice.

But this kid, he is going to get something truly uninspiring. Eric HATES all things new-agey. His offer so far was Theodore, which (and no offense to any Teds, Theos, Teddys out there) but that just strikes me as being a really fruity sounding name just begging for a playground beating.

I liked Nicholas, Benjamin, Max, Riley and so one and so forth. HE HATES ALL OF THEM and won’t give an explanation as to why, just says “IT’S WRONG”. Ahhh, wrong. Okay well that’s helpful.

So then I thought, ‘how about some good old fashioned Norwegian name?’. But let me tell you, he (Eric) already has the only good one that doesn’t sound like some kind of yuppie sportswear – BUT GET THIS – I am not allowed to use Eric because of some stupid opinion he has about Jr’s. and offending his oldest son.

In his words, “Chris will want to know why he wasn’t given that name.” And my answer would be, because his mother was a fool. So as usual in my secondary role, I get seconds.

The other name of course I love is Christopher, which happens to be Eric’s middle name, but that is also taken his first son. So I guess this kid will have to ask his dad, “Why was my brother good enough to get one of your names, but I get the shaft?” and I will be standing behind him with hands on hips, head cocked to the side and a smirk on my face saying, “Yeah ERIC, tell him why.”

Anyway, moving on from that psychological mess of crap, I am stuck with the current “well, I don’t hate that one” names of Thomas and Alexander, which are okay and I don’t hate either, but who wants to explain to their child “well we named you _______ because we didn’t hate that name, sorry it sucks”.

Not to mention all the suggestions we have been given and the pressure from certain family members to use names that may just not be “the one.”

I know this is silly, but a name is important. It defines you, helps in creating your experiences, your past, present and future – especially for boys. I just want something manly sounding, but also endearing to loved ones.

About Dawn Olsen

Check Also

GalaxyCon Richmond: Tara Strong

"Perfect is boring and you're going to make mistakes. If you learn from them, let them go."