The Opinionator

What's In a Name?

My wife and I have had five children, the youngest is age 30. When we had these babies in the 1970s, I remember the struggle it was to find names for them.  We wanted names which reflected our values and avoided stigmatizing.  I once knew a very heavy girl, morbidly obese.  Her name was Agnes and we called her Aggie.  I could never name one of my daughters Agnes.  I also would avoid naming a son Elmer since that conjures up images of Elmer Fudd, shot gun in hand, chasing that silly "wabbit."  I could never pick "Apple" for my daughter, as did the rich but unfortunate Gwyneth Paltrow and I understand that Matthew McConaughey wants to name his kid "Bud" after his favorite beer. Consider Sylvester Stallone's choice of Sage Moonblood for his son. Magician Penn Gillette, who we just saw voted off "Dancing with the Stars" has named his son "Moxie Crimefighter." Kind of makes names like "Suri" and Shiloh" sound ordinary. Actor Jason Lee ("My Name is Earl") takes the prize.  He named his baby boy "Pilot Inspektor."

 My wife and I are into traditional names and tried to reflect that in what we named our kids.  Our oldest was named "Mary."  As a Catholic there was always the attraction of naming your babies after saints. Our second born we named "Patrick" a fitting sobriquet for an Irish Catholic whose father's name is "Mike." Our next baby, child number three, was "Catherine" and our fourth was "Elizabeth."  By the time we got to our fifth and youngest we had run out of names of British monarchs or Irish saints so we settled on "Melissa."  I would have liked "Ann" or "Rose" but the wife wanted a name with more syllables. We've had some bad names in our history.  My father's name was "Harold" and he hated it and my mother-in-law's name was "Ivis." Sounds like the name of some rare bird or insect. She got even by naming a daughter "Lona" and another "Vilma." My mother would have called me "Sylvia" if I had been a girl and I would have hated that. At least she avoided naming me "Frank Sinatra" which she admits being tempted to do.

 If you Google "Bad Baby Names" you'll find that there is a body of articles, books and web sites on this subject.  One of the favorites I saw was naming your little girl "Ima Hooker."  People with interesting surnames have had fun naming their children "Mary A." as in "Mary A. Jerk" or "Mary A. Belcher."  I was in the Army with a guy whose last name sounded exactly like the F-word. He proudly wore his name on his fatigues and I am sure he saw nothing strange when people shouted his name, although many of us chortled behind his back.

It can be interesting to examine popular names years ago compared to today. Consider  these lists of favorites:

                                           2006                                                            1900

What would make a parent bestow a newborn with a name like "Tiny Hooker" or "Fanny Large"? It's not just Hollywood's elite opting for unique, embarrassing names-throughout history, normal people separated their offspring from the masses with truly terrible names.

In "Bad Baby Names," Michael Sherrod and Matthew Ray back, of the genealogy Web site Ancestry.com, share thousands of shocking names given to real people, as recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau. Discover the funny names based around common themes, like diseases (Fever Bender, Cholera Peace), food (Bread White, Pomegranate Purple) and pets (Good Dog).  My personal literary favorite is an Army Major in "Catch 22."  His name was Major Major Major Major.  Dickens could really pick great names for his characters.  In "A Tale of Two Cities" there was a grave robber who was always licking rust off his fingers. He was a disgusting character, an ignorant and unwashed man who beat his religious wife. His name was Jerry Cruncher.