Friday Funsies - Part 5 - What's In A Name?

Most people are aware of my thoughts about names for children. Actually, most people are getting to become aware of my thoughts on just about everything, 'cuz that's America and this is my blog.

But back to names. I know each parent wants only to separate their child from the kabillion others they'll come in contact with during their lives, and some choose to reflect that uniqueness in their name. Some actually choose Uniqueness as their name, and therein lies our problem. How far can we go to ensure our child is never just another of the 500 Johns in their school without also having them cringe every time they have a new teacher who has to do the "Uh, I'm not sure how to pronounce this.....Jones? Last name Jones?" As parents, we want our children to be the perfect specimen singled out, heads above the rest, just as they are in our hearts, but without the headturning and being singled out and embarrassed part. At this point, though, all logic has quickly gone out the window and parents are grasping at any vowel-consonant combination that sounds somewhat appealing. Funny in the 1990s when George Constanza was insisting on naming his first-born "Seven." Not so funny now because that's actually being used. We are the generation of recyclers and we've moved on to recycling everyday words into names, and our children are paying the price.

We really only ever discussed girl names with our first son. Once the ultrasound showed boy parts, though, that was that. Nothing but boy names and they had to go through the Jay Williams Course of Approval. That consisted of this one brief qualifier:

Will the child get his ass kicked on the playground with that name?

If the answer was yes (and ultimately, all of my creative suggestions were), then the name was a definite no go. Fortunately for Jay, we saw pretty much eye-to-eye on most, and Ryan was an easy home run for us. Justin was a little more stretch of the imagination, but we were still very pleased. But......third time isn't always a charm when you're not only running out of names from the Approved Name List, but are also now boxed into a corner of your own doing where you've now added a second qualifier:

All names must end with an "n" sound, but cannot share the same vowel right before the 'n.'

Now I will personally take most of the blame for that silly little rule. I wanted it to sound good when all of their names were said together. Having grown up as my sister and I becoming a two-headed interchangable monster usually referred to as "Trishceleste," I envisioned names that were easy to read and even easier to scream out in anger when necessary. But....for whatever reason, when I was pregnant with my third son, I balked. There were no good 'n' names left (none that Jay would allow, anyway). I started to wander into other territories, looking at our relatives, thinking of names with meaning and strength. Being the perfectionist that he is, though, Jay forced me to continue on the name route we'd chosen and stuck to, and in the end all that was left was Brandon. Even still, though, I cringed at the thought because it was the year 2000 and the TV show 90210 (the original, not the current one) was still in reruns and I hated the thought of our child having any resemblance to Brandon Walsh. But with my due date approaching, my hormones exploding, and my body resembling more whale than woman, my resolve faded and my only concern became "get this motherf--in' snake off my motherfu--in' plane." You know what I mean.

So on that day, October 10, 2000, our wonderfully perfect son was born. But Jay should've been paying more attention to my too quick to agree reversal. On the day after he was born, Jay came into the hospital room to inform me that they'd misspelled our son's name on his birth certificate. The name was now forever preserved as Branden Williams. As the beatific mother, ruler of all, I sat in judgment that day (very uncomfortably, having just had surgery, but still judging) and looked down at this man who had NO part in the removal of the alien from my body, and declared in no uncertain terms that there was nothing erroneous about the name. I had chosen, and therefore it was to be.

Except.......now what I had always feared (and what Jay thinks is a hilarious karma kick in the ass) has come true: My child is embarrassed by his name. He hates it. He wants it to be Brandon. He writes Brandon on as many assignments as he can get away with. He tells his friends it's spelled with an O. And for the cherry on top, this is how he described his name in a recent autobiography he had to write:

With an O my name means Irish, with an E my name means broom on a hill. Now broom on a hill does not match me because one I’m not a broom and two I don’t like hills. Now with an O it sort of matches me because I am part Irish.

So what's in a name? In the end, it's everything you wanted it to be, and nothing your children want it to be. But whether you choose it to be with an -en or -on is entirely up to you.