Baby Names Part 1: When Baby Names go Wrong

22 Dec 2011 4 Comments

by Barbara in Catholicity, DT's

Last week I finally got to see an ultrasound photo of baby #2, and while this one wasn’t quite the dynamo that Isabel was in utero,  it was beautiful to see her stretch her little legs, curl back up and basically say to the world “I’m not gonna wake up for some dude poking me with a stick” a sentiment to which I can relate.  Seeing little bean curled blissfully in her hutch of maternal body made me start to consider baby names and then gave me an idea for a two-part baby name post.

Basic Philosophy

Naming baby is not about me!  It’s not about showing how creative or intelligent I am, or about how many literary references or cutesy twists in spelling I can inflict upon a human being.  It’s not about my personal philosophy of life or what I think is cool, or what celebrities I pay most attention to.  I’m not engaging in an act of self-expression as I might be if I were picking a stage name, a pet-name or a character in a novel. I am naming, not just a baby, but a human being.  What I choose will be an integral part of that child’s identity.  And while no one except God himself knows who this little being inside of me going to become, the name I choose must respect, both horizontally and vertically who that child is.  Horizontally the name connects the child to his or her community and culture.  Vertically, the name should connect the child to his faith and or family traditions, to give the child the sense a sense of being rooted.

Which is why current naming trends really piss me off  especially…

Last names as girls’ first names…This is just trendy idiocy: Taylor, Fisher, Madison (Damn you Splash! Damn you to hell!) Mackenzie, Why Mackenzie? Who decided that the most perfect name for an angelic towheaded baby girl was a Scottish patronymic? Why not Macdonald, or Macduff?   “This is my daughter MacLeod, she is an only child because there can be only one”

Kre8iv Spelyngs Many names have spelling variations due to way English evolved.  One can spell it “Lee” “Leah” or “Leigh”.  “Isabel” can be written “Isabelle.” However, as a teacher who has to pore through lists of approximately 120 names a year, seeing an already beautiful name like Jasmine turned into Jazzmyn because some parents believe that they are “too hyp and indivijul to folo kommin rools uv spelying” is like listening to Mozart’s Sonatas played on recorders by fourth graders backed by a dentral drill orchestra.   

FauxCeltica: I suppose the Scottish patronyms might fit here.  There has been a trend in recent years towards Celtic names, not the real, toothsome names that recall the harsh and ancient tongues of woad wearing wild men such as Cuchulainn, Llew Llaw Gyffes or Lugh.  I mean the Celticy sounding nomenclatures by yuppies who think a fifth generation grandfather from Ireland and a “hand binding” wedding ring makes them true heirs of Tara.  These are names that almost always end in the consonant N, especially “aden” or “ayden” (because by law a “uniQ” baby name requires a minimum of 3 y’s under penalty of torture) such as Hayden, Brayden, Jayden, Maiden (for a boy of course).  This is where I give the Neopagans credit.  If they are picking a Celtic name it’s going to be a real one, in Scotts Gaelic or Welsh with consonant pairs that make the Anglophone tongue work for its supper.

Places and things…Just because places and things are all nouns, that does not make them names.   Your child should not sound like a World Cup Match.  “This is my son, Germany Cuba Tied-at-Zero” Paris and Brooklyn are cities, not people.  Also, naming your child “Apple” or “Jazz” or “Storm” is a form of child-abuse.   Children don’t want to be “individual” and “unique”,  their natural vulnerability makes them crave signs of security, which includes, among other things, being part of a family, making friends and being part of a group.  Standing out from the crowd is painful when you’re a child.

The fetish of “uniqueness” takes something natural, that is the singular dignity of every human being, and elevates it to a kind of demon-god.  The results are not only a deeper sense of rootlessness and alienation, but also and most ironically a mob-like uniformity.  In my personal life those  who make bones about their uniqueness, especially those in the arts, end up looking, thinking and  behaving exactly the same.  The phrase in Spanish “repetitive as lentils” applies.   They’re all lefties, they all want to live on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, they all smoke weed, they all hated George W. Bush, they all backpacked through Asia and Latin America, they read all the same books, wrote about the  same topics, practice the same spiritualities (Wicca and Buddhism were most popular) and even dressed alike.  Out the list of howlers on the “Baby’s named a bad, bad, thing” website and you see the same trends trotted out over and over again,  how many Mackenzies and Brooklynn’s?  So many –aydens, pounds and pounds of extra Y’s and N’s and double RR’s and meteorological phenomena, astral bodies and urban districts.  Everyone who tries to be unique, to make their child an extension of their “hip, artistic, outside the box, selves”  sounds exactly like everyone else who tries to be “hip”, “artistic” and “outside the box”.  In the end, because they can’t go deep, can’t root themselves and connect to others on a profound level, they go wide connecting superficially through imitation and identity consumption.

 

 

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